Hard Day's Knight (22 page)

I saw a split-second opening while Phil was clear and the monster was distracted, and I took my shot. Squaring my feet, I emptied my last clip of silver ammo into the back of the demon’s head, and had the satisfaction of seeing the beast fall face-first into the gym floor. Phil landed beside the fallen demon and raised his sword high.

“Nooooo!” I screamed and launched myself at the angel, catching him in a tackle worthy of the Pittsburgh Steelers. We tumbled head over heels across the gym as I tried to keep him from killing Baal.

“What are you doing, vampire?” I looked down when we had stopped to see a very pissed off angel just inches away from my face. He stood up, taking me with him, and grabbed me by the shirtfront. “I had him beaten. I’ve waited centuries to make this right, and
now
you decide to interfere? What the hell are you thinking?”

“Sabrina,” I croaked. He had more than a little throat in his grip. “We’ve got to save Sabrina. You kill Baal’s body, what happens to his host?”

“Idiot! His host isn’t even on this plane of existence anymore. She’s in Hell, you moron! He traded places with her, that’s why you could kill all those little girls without really doing any harm. Or didn’t you think of that?” Honestly, I hadn’t thought at all. I just figured Greg’s inner psychopath had finally surfaced, and I never liked little girls that much anyway.

“Oh.” I said quietly. “Well, as you were then, back to the killing big demon things.” I turned back to see where we had left Baal laying in the middle of the floor, but of course, nothing’s ever that easy.

Of course the demon wasn’t where we had left him. Demons aren’t exactly renowned for obedience, after all. That’s why they’re demons and not angels, I suppose. Baal had gotten to his feet and pulled himself back together. He looked a little the worse for wear, but I hate fighting things that heal faster than me. And he definitely had the edge on me there. I took a quick inventory and realized that I had exactly one knife, a .380 pistol with eight rounds of regular ammo, a Glock 17 without a bullet to be had, and a bad attitude. Phil had a really big and apparently magical sword, and Greg looked like he had two fists and a concussion. The more I thought about it, the worse our odds looked. So I did what I always do in those situations – I stopped thinking.

I jumped as high into the rafters as I could and yelled out to Greg “Go low!” He dove in at Baal’s feet while I dropped in from the rafters on his head, hoping to accomplish something besides getting cut in half by Phil’s oversized toothpick. Baal was too fast for either of us, though, swatting us both out of the air like mosquitoes. Really big mosquitoes in Greg’s case, but you get the idea.

I managed to adjust my course enough to land on a broken basketball backboard, and turned back to the fight to see Phil wading back in with his sword. He and Baal were weaving a deadly ballet in the air over the gym floor. Thrust, parry, thrust, slash, duck, repeat. It was almost beautiful to watch, except for the bit where we really needed to do something to help the angel and get Sabrina out of Hell where apparently she had taken Baal’s place when he came into our plane of existence. I made a mental note to ask Mike’s friend Anna about that if I lived long enough to see her again.

I looked frantically around the gym for something heavy enough to hit Baal with, but other than a pile of little girls scattered where we’d shot demons earlier, there was nothing of any size lying around. Then my eyes lit on the still form of Bun-head, curled in a fetal position over beside one set of bleachers. I yelled over to Greg “Make sure big ugly stays off me, I’ve got an idea!”

“How do you suggest I do that?” he yelled back.

“I suggest you keep Phil alive!” I shouted as I dashed across the gym. Pieces of ceiling were started to fall around us as Baal and Phil’s battle raged on. We were going to have to finish this pretty quickly, or there wasn’t going to be anything left of the gym.

I got to where Bun-head lay, and I reached out and shook her shoulder. “Hey, lady. Hey!” I shook her harder, and finally she looked up at me and screamed. I forgot that I had my fangs on display, and that tends to worry humans, even ones that sometimes summon demons. I slapped her across the face, and she stopped screaming long enough to slap me back.

“What in the world is wrong with you, young man?” she asked tartly.

“Wrong with me? Lady, we don’t have that much time. Anyway, do you know how to banish this big red bastard?” I pointed over to Baal, and she turned a really gross shade of pale green. I moved back a little, just in case she was going to puke, but she got herself under control. Yes, I realize the irony of not wanting to get a little puke on me when I was covered in demon brains, and blood both demonic and vampiric. But we all have our little hangups, and one of mine is being puked on.

“How would I know anything about banishing monsters?” She asked, looking more confused than anyone who had caused this much trouble had any right to.

“You’re kidding, right? Lady, you frickin’
summoned
him! I would think that knowing how to put the genie back in the bottle would be one of the first things they teach you in demon-summoning class!”

“Demon summoning? What are you talking about young man? And what is wrong with your teeth?”

“Leave my teeth out of this, we’ve got way more important things to yell about right now. Like the fact that the big red guy over there is Baal, an Archduke of Hell, and that you summoned him, and now I need you to put him back where he came from because there is a very attractive lady cop that is currently hanging out in Hell, where Baal is supposed to be, because when he came here, she had to take his place down there!” I was pretty proud of the fact that I hadn’t hit her yet, but she was running out of time before I started punching things, and she was the nearest target.

“I did no such thing, young man. I am a Christian! I merely called up the angels to assist me with a certain problem, and nothing more. I would never consort with demons! I won’t even speak to agnostics!”

“What ‘certain problem’ did you think you were calling angels to help you with?” She didn’t answer. “Cancer? Are you sick? Do you have a sick kid?” Still nothing. “Were you praying for peace? Trying to bring the soldier home and bring those families back together?” Not a peep. “Then what the hell was it?”

“The lottery.” She said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, actually, I didn’t. You see, right behind me, my best friend is fighting a huge demon alongside a fallen angel who has suddenly decided, for lack of a better term, to walk on the side of the angels and help us. So it’s a little loud in here and you’re mumbling, so please repeat what you just said.” I tried to keep my voice very even through that little spiel, but I might have squeaked once or twice. I was a little tense.

“I asked the angels to help me win the lottery. It’s up to 165 million, and I could use the money to do so much good.”

“I bet you could.” I couldn’t believe it. A string of kidnappings, a zombie infestation, a pile of demon possessions, a parking lot full of trashed cars and a gymnasium that looked like Armageddon was just an opening act, and it was all for money. Root of all evil in-flippin’-deed. “So when you called these ‘angels’ did you use a spell or just pray?”

“I found a spell to communicate with celestial bodies. I used that.”

“Well, great job, lady! Look how well that’s worked out for everybody!”

“I didn’t mean to!” She was almost crying now, as what she’d done started to sink in. I took a deep breath, looked back at where Greg and Phil were holding their own (barely), and settled myself down.

“I know. And you can make it right. Do you know how to banish this beastie?”

“I have no idea. I don’t remember anything since Tuesday. I was walking home, and all of a sudden I was asleep. I had the most terrible dreams, too.” Crap. Tuesday was when we fought the girl at Tommy’s house. When Mike banished Belial, she must have followed the magic back to her summoner and took her over. So Bun-head remembers nothing since Belial took over and started trying to bring Daddy Dearest here to earth.

“Alright. Stay here, then. And if that thing kills us, start running.”

“Where will I go?”

“I don’t think I’m going to care very much if I’m dead lady. If I croak, you’re on your own.” I stood up, dusted myself off, and got ready to jump back into the fight. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something shiny. I’ll admit that I’m easily distracted by shiny objects, but this time it turned out to be a good thing.

At one side of the gym there was a little stage set into the wall, and at the front corners of the stage, one on each corner, were two flags. One was the standard American flag with an eagle atop the flagpole, but it was the other flag that caught my eye. I recognized it from playing softball for a Baptist church one summer in high school. It was the Christian flag, a red cross on a field of blue in the top left corner of a white flag. But the flag wasn’t what grabbed my attention; it was the flagpole. Eight feet tall and topped with a heavy gold cross, it looked like just the thing to smite an archdemon with.

I ran across the gym, grabbed the flagpole, and yelled over to Greg, “Get high!” He vaulted about fifteen feet into the air, and I chucked the flagpole at him like a javelin. He caught it on the fly, turned a somersault in midair, and dove straight down for Baal, cross-first.

Phil saw what we were doing and launched into an all-out attack, thrusting and slashing with renewed fury. I had a brief second to think about how screwed we were if this didn’t work, and then Greg was diving into the demon with his Christian flagpole/spear. As the flying vampire got close, the cross atop the flagpole glowed brighter and brighter, eventually bursting into white fire as it touched the demon. Greg buried the cross deep into the meaty shoulder part between Baal’s neck and head, and the demon collapsed to his knees, screaming. Greg landed behind the beast and rolled clear, as Phil moved in for the kill.

He paused for just a second, sword raised, and Baal looked him in the eyes. “Why, Zepheril? You could have been the greatest of us all.”

Phil looked at him with something like pity and said, “Dante was wrong, Baal. It is infinitely better to serve in Heaven than to rule in Hell. I just hope this proves that I’ve learned that lesson.” Then Phil drew back his sword and sliced off the demon’s head in the middle of the gym.

After such a brutal fight, the aftermath was almost anticlimactic. There was no big explosion, no huge lightshow as the demon vanished into sparks, no great gaping maw opening in the earth to suck Baal back into Hell. All in all, it would have been much more impressive if it were designed for the Xbox. But real life, as weird as it is, still isn’t a video game.

So the demon just disappeared, to be replaced by a screaming Sabrina standing in the gym firing her pistol randomly around her. We all ducked, and she ran out of ammo without shooting anyone on this plane, so all was good. I waited a minute before I stood up cautiously and said “Sabrina? Are you okay?”

She looked at me, still holding her pistol, and said in a shaking voice, “Jimmy?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?” I repeated.

“I…I think so. I mean, I’m back. I’m alive, or at least I think I’m alive.”

“Trust me. You’re alive. I can smell you.”

“That’s gross.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure I smell like Hell.”

“Literally, I think.” She laughed, which worried me a little. I always worry when a woman laughs at my jokes. When they’re laughing at me, it’s just situation normal. But when they’re actually laughing at my jokes, I look around for the camera crew.

“Where was I?’ Sabrina limped over to one of the tables that had been scattered around for the carnival and sat down. I followed her and stood beside her. I kept looking around, worried that we weren’t quite done fighting for the evening. After all, it wasn’t quite midnight, so I figured there was still a chance for everything to go to crap.

“Hell.” I said simply. “I’m pretty sure you were in Hell.”

“I believe it.”

“What was it like?” She hesitated, and I added, “If you can talk about it, I mean.”

“Yeah, I think I can. I was surrounded by those psycho little girls again, and no matter how many of them I killed, more of them kept coming. They swarmed me again and again, and just when I finally thought they had killed me, I opened my eyes and I was standing there in the forest again, and they were all coming again. It was like Zombieland meets Groundhog Day.” She shivered, and I moved beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“You know, Bill Murray was in both of those movies.” I pointed out. She elbowed me in the gut, but she laughed a little. That was twice she’d laughed at my jokes – we were gonna need a hospital for her pretty damn quick. She was obviously concussed if she thought I was funny.

“So what happened?” She asked. And I filled her in. At least up to the point where Phil cut off the demon’s head. When I got to that part, something struck me and I yelled across the gym.

“Hey, Phil!”

“Yes, James?” I guess after that fight I’d been promoted past “little vampire.”

“Why did you help us?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a fallen angel, right? Cast out of Heaven for picking the losing side in Lucypher’s rebellion? Stuck here on Earth forever because you can’t go to Hell and you’ll never be allowed back into Heaven?”

“Never is a very long time, Jimmy-lad. And we’re not given to see all the way to the end of it.” I turned and Mike was limping into the gym, one arm draped over Lilith’s shoulder as she helped him to our table. Greg and Phil made their way over to us, as did Bun-head, who introduced herself rather shamefacedly as Janet.

“What do you mean, Mike?” I pulled a chair over next to Sabrina, and she didn’t pull away. That’s always a good sign.

“I mean that even the worst of sinners is offered redemption, again and again. Look at you, my boy. You made enough peace with your maker to come onto holy ground to fight a demon. So who’s to say there’s not hope for even a fallen angel?” I shook my head a little, but I generally defer to Mike on spiritual matters. After all, he’s the one with the hotline to the guy upstairs, not me.