Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (20 page)

Like an angry mob they rushed in, pale, drawn, but no longer drifting. They had a purpose. They went straight for Abaddon, using their sheer numbers as a weapon. They couldn’t hurt him, but they reached for him, touching him, throwing themselves through his body. Some flung themselves into the fire, but came out unscathed on the other side, looking disappointed. Abaddon tried to hit at them, to push them away, but his clawed hand went right through their bodies. He backed away from the horde, looking horrified. He was right on the edge of the chasm now. Bobby was screaming in pain, but kept the portal open. It seemed to be trying to suck at Abaddon’s feet, but the demon was fighting it, using his weight to keep from tottering over. Sasha had stopped in his struggle to watch Abaddon struggle with, through his eyes, nothing. He seemed to remember what he was doing, and heaved on the pink line just as the gang of spirits rushed the demon a second time. Abaddon gagged whenever they touched him.

Alexei Slobodian looked at me then. There was determination in his eyes, but also a deep sadness. He looked back to Abaddon, then at the fire behind him. Wrapping the line of pink around his waist and securing it, nodded at me. Then he jumped like a diver into the pit of fire.

“No!” I screamed. But no one heard me over Gage’s tormented howling. The demon was having a hard time staying upright. He tottered, and seemed about to fall back, but righted himself at the last minute. I walked forward, taking my hand out of my pocket. I looked at Abaddon for a long moment. He smiled at me, his alien face taut with exertion and stress. “I pity you,” I said. And I reached up on tiptoes and blew into my hand, sending a cloud of salt right into his eyes.

The truth is, salt in the eyes is never pleasant. It would have knocked anyone back even if they weren’t, apparently, deathly allergic. But as soon at the salt touched him, Abaddon screamed in pain and thrust his hands over his face. A rank steam wriggled through his fingers and even over the screaming, I heard the distinct sound of sizzling. He staggered back, and slipped on the edge of the opening, catching himself by the elbows.

His face was red, raw, like he’d been burned. His eyes were gone, the small dark holes surrounded by angry boils and an opaque liquid that his wounds were exuding. He shook his great head, like a dog that had been stung by a bee and wanted to shake the pain off. For a moment I felt compassion for him for the pain, the handicap of being blinded. I didn’t think he could heal from this like he had the bullets. But then I remembered everyone that had suffered. Even the deaths and the lives ruined from the Darks seemed related to Abaddon. I remembered the slaughtered family, the unfathomable grief of Gary Chenowith, the policeman that had died along with all the people on the highway. The woman in the blue dress, the lovers and the security from the office, Philip Morales and his sister. Judge Shandler, Mayor Delaney, and Hugh goddamn Perry. And my father. The man that had chosen badly in life, done things he regretted, abused alcohol and drugs. But he had also protected me from that life, making himself the enemy all these years to make sure I had a chance. I looked at the demon’s pitiful face then. A ball of ice had expanded in my chest. I wound back with my steel-toed boot and kicked Abaddon right under the chin.

He lost his grip with his elbows, and tried to hang on by his long talons. But they slipped on the cement slowly with a scraping noise. He screamed as he fell into the raging fire. The floor closed up as soon as his horns cleared, and it was suddenly quiet in the warehouse, the only light a bare bulb swinging back and forth. The crowd of spirits stared in disbelief at the spot where Abaddon had disappeared. There was a dull thud and I looked over to see that Gage was on the floor. I ran to him, my legs wobbly.

“Bobby, you okay?” I said.

“All good,” he slurred. “Just need a little nap.” He let out a long snore.

“Miss Slobodian?” I looked up to see the spirits, the man in the suit in front, their ringleader, apparently. “We’ve all been dead for a good while now,” he said. “We’re not like the fresh ones, craving their lives, wanting to be back with loved ones. We’ve all been dead so long we barely remember living. We only want rest now. We would be obliged if you would hold up your end of the bargain and help us.”

I nodded, looking at Gage. He was sleeping, his cheek squished against the filthy cement. I took off my coat and slipped it under his head. “I’ll try,” I said.

Helping the ghosts wasn’t as simple as I thought. I tried all the tricks that usually worked, talking out their deaths, making sure they weren’t feeling an intense amount of guilt, seeing if they hated or loved something enough to keep them here. None of my tried and true methods worked on any of them. There was no swirling, no dispersing into the air. Nothing. This was getting a lot harder.

I apologized hundreds of times, and finally the ghosts filed out through the wall, angrily denouncing charlatans and cheats. I felt like a fraud. What good was my gift if I couldn’t help anyone? I had always been uneasy with my ability, but the truth was that I couldn’t have accomplished any of the things in my life without it. It helped in my work. The spirits of the victims had helped me track and shoot down Gabe Condry, the serial killer, before he tortured any more women. That led Hugh Perry to single me out, but I had done good. I had helped a lot of people. Just because the living trumped the dead didn’t mean that I was heartless. And now it was time to stop running from my ability and start appreciating it. But why couldn’t I get anyone to cross over? Was it because they were long-dead? Maybe it only worked for the short-timers. I would have to ask Sam. He seemed to know a lot about these things.

I crouched down next to Gage. “Just me and you, Bobby,” I said. I looked down and saw that the toe of my boot was covered in the slime that had been all over Abaddon’s face. I wrinkled my nose at the smell. I found an old advertisement-only newspaper in the corner and wiped my boot off with it. I sat next to Gage and waited. I knew I couldn’t move him by myself, and I couldn’t just leave him here. Best to just wait it out. I was in no hurry now anyway.

There was a faint scritching noise somewhere in the warehouse. With the high ceiling the sound echoed so it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. It sounded like rats. I grabbed what was left of the newspaper and rolled it into a tube to swat the vermin away if they came near us. I heard the noise again, then louder. There must have been a lot of rats around here.

I heard a car pull up outside. The engine turned off and I could hear the faint sound of someone walking over the gravel outside. I reached for my coat pocket under Gage’s enormous head, but realized after I grabbed the Marakov that it was still out of bullets. I’d never bothered reloading it. I trained it at the door anyway. I’d just have to bluff.

The great door scraped and screeched sideways and Eli walked in. “Jesus, Niki. Put that thing away. You okay?” he said, striding over to me.

“Notice anything?” I said.

He looked around. “Did you change your hair?”

“No. But I did help vanquish a demon. And I’m the only one still standing.”

“You’re sitting.”

“That is only because my legs won’t hold me. Help me up, would you? I think there are rats in here. I heard them scratching.”

He pulled me up. “I’ve been calling you,” he said.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at it. “Dead,” I said.

“Figures.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Talked to Sofi,” he said. “Felt bad waking her like that, but I had to make sure you were okay.”

I told Eli what happened.

“So why was the demon so taken with you?” he said. “Not that I blame him,” he quickly added. “But, I mean, it’s like he only had eyes for you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s because of that connection he had to my father. Only natural that if my father loves me, the feeling might transfer over to the demon. Or maybe I’m just more interesting than anyone else.”

“Maybe it’s your modesty,” said Eli. He looked at me. “All joking aside, Nik, I was pretty worried about you. I’m glad you’re alive. And,” he cleared his throat, “I’m real sorry about your dad. He was a son-of-a-bitch, but I’m pretty sure he loved the hell out of you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess he did.”

“He said something to Abaddon,” he said, looking down at his own lap. “Can you tell me more about that?”

“Oh,” I said, thinking back. “He said something about how Abaddon couldn’t kill him. He said the cancer would be more successful. Something like that, anyway.”

“What do you think he meant by that?” Eli was acting peculiar. He was trying to be nonchalant, but it was just making his questions more suspicious.

“I don’t know, I thought he was just trying to fake Abaddon out,” I said. “Why?”

Eli shook his head. “No reason.”

“What’s the matter with you? You’re acting weird.”

“Just tired,” he said, smiling. “Think you can help me throw this lug into the backseat of the car?” He gestured at Gage, who let out a snore in return.

“I can try,” I said, getting up. I heard the scritching noise again and it seemed to me that the floor vibrated just a little. “Did you feel that?” I said.

“What was that?” said Eli.

Now the scritching had turned into a hard scraping noise, like stone against stone. A noise like a sledgehammer shook us even harder and I grabbed onto Eli so I wouldn’t fall over. I looked at the floor. Right at the spot where Abaddon and my father had disappeared, a spiderweb of cracks had appeared. The booming noise came again, and the spiderweb exploded, shards of cement bursting out from within. It was like a small bomb went off, only instead of an explosion, a blackened, clawed fist had exploded from underneath the floor.

“Oh, shit,” said Eli.

“Yeah,” I said.

We ran to Gage, and each tried taking an arm. Gage weighed about a million pounds and we grunted under his weight. Finally we managed to get him up off the floor, and wind his arms around our shoulders. I couldn’t reach my coat on the floor after getting Bobby up, and there was no time. I loved that coat, but I loved being alive more. Abaddon had shattered more cement and managed to get his head out, and was now sniffing the air, his sightless eyes endless holes, the scar tissue already forming on his face.

“Bobby, wake up,” I said, as we dragged him away from the demon, and back toward the barrel-lined aisles. His toes dragged along the ground, but he didn’t wake. Eli and I went as fast as we could. I motioned with my chin the direction to the back door. The cold hit me like I’d been doused in ice water. I always forgot how much colder it was by the water, even the sludgy, smelly water of this river. Fresh water my ass. Gage groaned, but his head lolled. Stealing glances behind us, we dragged him back towards the car. We were still way too close to the demon lord that I had blinded, insulted, and literally kicked back into Hell.

After some grunting and cursing, we managed to cram Gage into the back seat. I fished around in his pocket for the keys. “Shit,” I said, as they slipped out of my hands and onto the floor. As I grabbed at them, my arm nudged the bag of rock salt we’d hefted there at the mayor’s house. I looked on the other side of the floor to see the long, rectangular box that had all my guns from the police station.

“Niki, let’s get the hell out of here,” Eli said. He was sitting shotgun, staring at the warehouse.

“I have an idea,” I said. I turned on the dome light and opened the box, fishing around in the dimness for what I was looking for. I found it at the bottom. My old shotgun. An inappropriate birthday present from one of Sasha’s friends, back before he wasn’t in my life anymore. Sofi had given it back to me on my eighteenth birthday. I fished around in the bottom of the box and found two shells. I opened the first shell, setting the shotgun on top of Gage. Carefully I dumped half of the buckshot on the ground. I reached over and dipped my hand in the bag of rock salt and looked at it. It was the big, chunky kind. That was good. I filled the shell up with the salt and closed it back up.

“Niki, this had better be worth risking our lives for,” said Eli. He pulled out his Glock.

“That’s not going to help you,” I said, and started filling the second shell with the rock salt.

“I know,” he said. “But it makes me feel better with a goddamn giant from Hell after us.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I heard a crash coming from the warehouse. “Think he’s found his way out?” I said. I closed up the second shell, then loaded them both into the shotgun. I pumped it and got ready. “I just need him to get close enough,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this will work.”

“Pretty sure?” said Eli. “For keeping us here and possibly causing our extremely unpleasant deaths, you’d better be positive.”

There was the sound of metal grinding, then wood splintering, and then nothing. Eli and I watched the warehouse, waiting for the demon to come staggering out. There was a thump, then another. I looked up and nearly soiled myself. Abaddon was on the roof, standing straight up, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. He crouched and jumped, the ground shaking under his feet. We were fifty feet from the demon now. I had to wait to get a better shot.

The demon stopped, steadying himself, then sniffed again. He turned toward us. “Oh, Jesus,” said Eli. He took a step toward us, then another, then he was running, barreling down the road. I steadied the shotgun, waiting for the right time. He was nearly close enough. I got ready. Just as I was about to unload, he veered off, cutting a path toward the water.