A Short Story a Day

by David Michael

Reese watched the deadhunter safari file out of the Cain’s Mark Hotel, and for the first time in her life she envied them. No, envy was too strong a word. She just wished the day she faced was more like theirs.

The deadhunters walked in sloppy ranks, three abreast through the automatic doors of the hotel lobby. They bore a mismatch of arms and armor, modern body armor and chainmail gauntlets and military surplus helmets and off-white canvas tunics sporting red crusaders crosses on the chest, AR-15’s and AK-47’s with bayonets affixed and three-meter pikes and halberds.

Pudgy white tourist faces looking forward to a day of rousting sleepy vampires to knock their teeth out for trophies before dropping the spike down on them, and maybe even debrain a zombie or two. Then, as the sun went down, the weekend warriors of good and justice would retire–also known as “run like hell”–back to the hotel for a night of drinking and carousing with the carnal pleasures that only Hell on Earth could provide.

A few of the deadhunters, probably the veterans of past safaris, noticed her standing on the shadowy side of one of the marble columns that held up of the respectable facade of the Cain’s Mark Hotel. She stood, not leaning against the column, in the long black jacket that Sam had bought for her two years before. Neither of her weapons, Sam’s katana nor her sawed-off Winchester Model 12, were visible, but they didn’t have to be.

The deadhunters looked at her, met her green eyes, saw the meaning of despair, the truth about marching into an unwinnable war, and looked away quickly, maybe marching a bit faster than before.

Pathetic, damn tourists. She despised them, and so did most of the rest of Hell on Earth.

Still … for a brief instant she considered asking them to help her. Not because they would be that helpful–it doesn’t take that much nerve to tackle a vampire in broad daylight, especially with odds of thirty to one, and the whole group of them would probably shit their pants at just one unimpeded look at the Old Man–as because no one likes to die alone.

The automatic doors closed silently behind the last of the deadhunters and the normal morning activity of the hotel resumed.

Reese stood there, missing Sam, her grey-blue eyes, her blond hair, the line of her chin and throat, the rise and  fall of her small breasts when she panted after a battle, or after sex …

But that was why Reese was here alone, because the Old Man had killed Sam in front of her. And left Reese alive. And armed.

She hoped that had been a mistake. But she doubted it.

Either way, she planned to make him pay.

Finally, she made her right hand let go of the smooth, polished pistol stock of the Winchester, letting the gun settle back on its strap under the coat, and took her hand out of its pocket. With her left hand, she held the front of the coat open as she reached into the coat and pulled Sam’s katana out of its scabbard.

She looked at the black blade, a curved line of night in the morning air. She thought about kissing the blade, in memory of Sam, but she knew better. The blade liked soft flesh too much.

Holding the blade out to the side, away from her, Reese bent over and let her long, brown hair fall down around her face. She gathered the hair in her left hand, like a reverse ponytail hanging down in front of her.

Her right hand moved, bringing the katana to bear and the invisible edge of the blade cut through her hair smooth and silent.

She watched the hair she had grown out over the past six years fall to the concrete at her feet. Sam had loved Reese’s hair, the hard woman with the butch haircut taking a girlish delight in brushing Reese’s hair at night, one hundred strokes, before they went to bed.

Little sacrifices sometimes make all the difference, the witch had told Reese, as that woman made one of her own.

With Sam gone, Reese had very little left to sacrifice. If there was a Hell–and Reese no longer had any doubts about that–then maybe there was a god somewhere, or a Goddess like the witch had insisted, and maybe he/She would be impressed that Reese had given up this last bit of Sam she had been able to hold onto.

If not, well, Reese knew she was fucked. And the Old Man fucked hard.

The automatic doors opened for her as she walked in, the katana still in her right hand, edge down, point just above the well-kept carpeting of the lobby.

She ignored the gasps and stares of the tourists and the staff and headed for the bank of elevators. One security guard, a seven foot tall ogre looking uncomfortable in his blue blazer and ill-fitting slacks, came out of the shadows as if to to stop her.

Reese kept walking, but pointed the katana at his chest as she did so. “He’s expecting me,” she said.

The ogre worked for the hotel, but he knew immediately who she meant. He stepped aside, letting her pass. “He is in the Skymoon Room,” the ogre rumbled. “Top floor.” Then he faded back into the shadows.

Reese nodded.

The other people waiting for elevators scattered away from her and allowed her first pick and an elevator all to herself.

An instrumental version of Sympathy for the Devil played as the elevator took her up to her doom. Reese  hummed along, but had no sympathy for anyone any more.

The elevator reached the top floor. The doors slip open to reveal two men in blood red and charcoal black suits. One of them held a serrated sword, the other an Uzi.

Reese killed the man with the Uzi first, slicing up through his forearm then across his neck, sending hand and gun and head to bounce around on the floor. Because even if the Old Man might be expecting her, there was no reason to announce that she was hear.

Almost stealthy of her. Sam would be so proud.

That is, until she saw Reese in action with the katana. Sam had been graceful, biting death, striking from the darkness like an edged shadow.

Reese held the sword with two hands and hacked like she was swinging an axe, chopping through the middle of the other man, the hard, black metal cutting through the man’s sword as easily as it cut through the flesh and bones of his shoulder and chest. The blade reached his heart and then got stuck, sucked in and held in place by wet, sticky, dying body tissue.

She let the weight of the body pull the katana down, then put her foot on the chest as a brace and pulled the blade out. The blood on the blade evaporated–or soaked into the metal, she and Sam hadn’t been able to determine which really happened–either way it seemed to make the black metal even blacker. Blood also soaked her leather boots and had splashed onto her jacket.

If she didn’t already expect to die she would be so damn pissed about the drycleaning bill.

The corridor outside the elevator was empty. No other goons waited for her.

“Fuck me,” she said. The Old Man really was expecting her.

The Skymoon Room, with adjoining dressing rooms for both sexes and several varieties of unholy life and un-life, took up the entire top floor. Designed for moonlight dances and orgies or both or just any ritual that required open sky, day or night, a modicum of privacy, and the utility of being able to hose the place down when it was all over, the Skymoon Room was known throughout Hell on Earth. And, Reese figured, even beyond. Tourists used the Room as much as locals, though seldom leaving it as charnally messy.

A long bank of doors, all closed, waited for Reese across from the elevator. She let the elevator doors close behind her to take the head and Uzi down to the guests waiting in the lobby and stared at the doors, knowing that the Old Man waited for her on the other side.

She sheathed the katana and took out the shotgun, right hand on the stock, left hand on the pump.

One of the doors to the Skymoon Room opened out, saving Reese the trouble of taking one hand off the shotgun. She had expected an imp or one of the Old Man’s flunky devils. But the door seemed to have opened on its own. That disturbed Reese even more than the sight of a flunky devil with a hard on. Because the Old Man wasn’t known for his magical ability. Brutal discipline methods, crushing physical power, canibalistic carnal and sexual appetities, yes. Magic, no.

Reese remembered the time the Old Man had eaten nothing but witches–maidens, mothers and crones in equal measure, which balancing act had made it hard on Reese and Sam and the other hunters the Old Man sent out, because triads always fight and one or more would die and so there was a lot of mixing and matching to create full sets–because he was trying to soak up even the tiniest bit of magic, or voodoo, or bad medicine, or bad whatever. All he got was bad indigestion.

So evidence of magic was a Bad Thing.

On the other hand, when you already expect to die …

Bright morning sunlight streamed through the door, forcing Reese’s eyes to adjust. She blinked, then stepped into the Skymoon Room and under the steel-blue sky of Hell on Earth.

The Old Man stood in the center of the black tiled floor, almost three meters of muscular, hairy half-devil, half-human, completely nude, beside a freshly painted red pentagram. Reese wasn’t impressed. She had seen him nude before. Nothing could make him any uglier. He held his hands behind his back, though, and that did get her attention.

“Hey, Half-goat,” Reese said, looking out of the sides of her eyes to see what else she might have to deal with. “What you hiding?” she asked. Then she stopped talking and turned her head to look both ways, taking in the entire room. “You’re here alone?” Unexpected hope mixed with a greater dose of fear. If the Old Man was alone maybe she could take him.

Except that if the Old Man was alone … well, it probably meant he figured he didn’t need any help. And looking at him now, Reese thought she could see power, raw and bloody power, radiating from him. Like the magic, that was new, and further evidence of bad news to come.

The Old Man smiled at her, the devil half of his face making it look like a gloating sneer. “M’Reese,” he said, his nickname for her. “My Reese,” he added, in case she had forgotten the origins of the nickname. “I had begun to wonder if I had misjudged you.”

Reese judged the distance between them at nearly twenty meters. With its sawed-off barrel and full choke–plus the kick of 12-gauge shells–the shotgun was best used close in. Five meters, or less, was the goal, the range when the shotgun was most effective. Of course, the Old Man could be pretty damn effective at five meters too, all by himself.

She started walking towards the Old Man, wondering how close he would let her come, her finger tense on the trigger, the muscles of her arms tensing in anticipation of both holding the gun steady and pumping like mad.

She tried to think of something to say, anything, that could express her pain and hate and rage and fear. All that came out was a low growl.

The Old Man laughed at that. “Actually,” he said, “You’re right on time. I had only just finished painting the circle.”

He brought his hands in front of him and presented them to her, showing her what they held. His right hand, the well-manicured human hand, held the Hope of Friendship. In his left hand he held a paintbrush with bristles turning black from the blood drying on it.

At the sight of the porcelain urn, the mis-named Hope of Friendship, Reese bared her teeth. Only fifteen meters away now.

“Of course you knew M’Sam would be here, as well,” the Old Man said. “You were both necessary. Didn’t you know that?”

Reese didn’t respond. She just kept walking, taking step after step. The shotgun held five shells. Once she had unloaded those into the half-goat, she would drop the gun and see how long she lasted with the katana. Ten meters away now.

“That’s far enough,” the Old Man said.

Something invisible wrapped itself around Reese, stopping her in mid-step, off balance but keeping her upright. She squeezed the trigger and the gun tried to buck in her hand, but it was held as tightly as she. The shot escaped, though. The shot spread on its way to the Old Man and only some of it hit him, as if he had been splattered with a light spray of red and black paint.

The Old Man laughed and growled, eyes flashing fire, expressing what Reese knew was grudging respect for an adversary. Reserved for those opponents who had surprised him with their effectiveness. Usually just before the Old Man killed them–as slow as he could. Or did worse to them. As he had done to Reese and Sam once, before he had declared them his and put them to work.

Then the Old Man looked away from Reese. He dropped the paintbrush, kicking it away from the circle with his hoof-foot. He flexed and stretched, muscles rippling in his arms, chest and back, ending with the Hope of Friendship held over his head with both hands.

“yar arkith noshratl brokwashor lanarol,” he bellowed into the sky, and the power radiating from him became a glow.

Reese would’ve looked away if she could, but whatever held her wouldn’t budge. She tried to pump the shotgun, to chamber a new shell. And failed at that too.

“ishthanoth zikkoral yakgrah.” The Old Man bent over and set the Hope of Friendship down on the circle, where it joined a point of the penticle. The blood of the pentragram–Sam’s blood–erupted into fire. With a scooping motion of his hands, the Old Man caused some of the pentagram’s to jump to the top of the Hope of Friendship and begin burning there.

First a small red flame, but growing, blasting up into the air like a geyser of fire.

Reese struggled again, wanting to scream, but unable to open her mouth. Sam’s blood, being used this way–rage tore at her, burned in her skull. Red and white explosions clouded her vision.

“pwanith arkith frinsh … wazthorol.”

The pause drew Reese’s attention, cleared her vision, and … she cried.

Sam’s image appeared in the flames of her own blood, rising up, standing up to the Old Man one last time. Her mouth moved, but Reese could hear no words, only the flames.

The Old Man must’ve heard. With a roar, he struck at the flame-Sam. Heat blistered his hands but it also rent at the flames and Reese could see new pain in Sam’s face. Another blow ripped through Sam’s heart.

Reese fought against her unseen bonds, rage and hope giving her new strength. She felt the bonds budge, just the least amount and that made her fight harder.

The Old Man stepped back from the fire, uncertainty on the human side of his face. And that fueled Reese too.

Her bonds evaporated back into the air and she stumbled. She regained her balance and brought up the shotgun, pumping another shell into the chamber at the same time. Her shot hit the Old Man on his devil-goat shoulder and even pushed him back some, away from Sam. Reese couldn’t stand the thought of his killing Sam again.

The Old Man’s red and black eyes locked with hers, an instant of frozen action, then they both were in motion.

Reese charging forward, pumping another shell while still holding the trigger, firing another shot that hit him in the back as he turned that toward her, shuffling with his hoof-foot, bracing on the goat leg while he kicked over the Hope of Friendship with his human foot, splashing Sam’s still burning blood onto the pentagram.

“PWANITH ARKITH FRINSH WAZTHOROL,” he shouted the words this time as he turned to face Reese, now just two steps away, pumping another shot with the trigger still pulled, holding the gun steady as the shell exploded into the Old Man’s chest and knocked him back, to land on the tiled floor, his chest splashing blood and meat and fur.

“Die you half-goat son of a bitch!” Reese yelled, stepping forward as the Old Man started to push himself up, pumping another round, the last one, and hitting the Old Man in the chest, driving him back down to the floor of the Skymoon Room. She took in deep, hard, hurting breaths, and stared into the Old Man’s eyes. “Die,” she said again.

“Not yet, M’Reese,” he said, and smiled at her. And sprang back to his feet a blur of motion that Reese hardly saw, only felt when his huge hand hit her and grabbed her and held her all at once.

She screamed and struck at him with the now-useless shotgun, unable to reach the katana because he held her left arm pressed against her side. “Die! Die! Die!”

He laughed and lifted her above his head. She struggled, but his one-handed grip now extended past the end of his fingers, wrapped invisibly around her and pinned her right arm to her body as well, and then stilled her kicking legs. An invisible gag forced its way into her mouth and stopped her screaming.

He held her above his head as he stepped back to the pentagram. He held her over the still-burning flames and the fire seemed to jump up, trying to reach her.

To Reese, the shape of the fire and blood in the pentagram looked like the body of Sam, slain again. And Reese had been just as helpless to stop it this time, just like before. Her tears fell from her cheeks but evaporated before they could touch the fire.

“shitugen frinsh pwanith hurkonol lorol,” the Old Man said, shaking Reese as he intoned the last syllables.

A long, ugly sacrificial knife that Reese recognized appeared in the Old Man’s left hand. The Backstabber, the companion piece to the Hope of Friendship, as baleful as the other was beautiful.

Unseen hands plucked at Reese’s clothes, ripping them off of her as the Old Man’s hand still held her aloft, casting aside the shotgun and the katana but not allowing her even a hint of freedom.

A new presence bubbled up in the pentagram, washing up and over and the blood and the image of Sam, oozing from a nowhere hell that screamed and tore in its attempst to erupt into this world. The presence lifted like a stalagmite of a hungry, dark cave, building up from the floor, reaching for Reese.

Reese tried again to free herself, failed again, couldn’t scream, could only watch the inhuman ooze get closer.

Just before it touched her, the Old Man pulled her back, just out of reach, though the ooze continued to reach for her its viscous shape bending improbably, unperturbed.

Pain stabbed in her right leg, and Reese watched her own blood splash over the ooze.

“pwanith arkith frinsh wazthorol hukonol lorol,” the Old Man said, his voice loud but no longer shouting.

Then he let go of Reese and she fell into the heart of the pentagram. But she didn’t strike the ooze. It flowed away from her, impossibly fast, piling up on itself to tower over her and the Old Man, who faced it unflinching.

The flames of the pentagram still burned, but they didn’t seem to hurt Reese. Instead, she felt Sam’s arms wrap around her, felt the light touch of a kiss on her forehead. Then she did feel the flames, and they scorched her before they disappeared, sputtering out as the magic leeched away and blood could no longer burn.

Reese looked away from the Old Man and whatever it was he had called forth with her and Sam’s blood. She looked at the steel-blue sky, the color of Sam’s eyes. And she felt Sam looking down at her.

“So this is how it ends?” Reese whispered, blackness creeping from the edges her vision and covering the sky.

No. Not Sam’s voice, but the thought of her, in Reese’s mind. Not yet.

Reese wanted to laugh. “Still the same old optimist,” she whispered. Her mouth was dry. She wanted … not water, she decided. She sighed. She wondered if the hotel bar was open this early.

The darkness spread from her vision and covered her mind, her spirit.

At least, she thought, at least … she hadn’t died alone.

Copyright © 2006 by David Michael.