The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons (25 page)

Dread and Baldy raised his arms and yanked off his jacket, shoulder holster, and shirt. The garments absorbed brown water on the bloodstained floor. The dead men clamped the cold manacles around his wrists and moved to opposing brick walls, where the ends of the chains had been secured around protruding metal spikes. Grinning at each other, they freed the chains and hoisted Jake until his feet dangled two feet above the floor, his arms pulled apart at forty-five-degree angles. Then they fastened the chains to the spikes once more, and Jake groaned from the strain on his muscles. The falling rain kept him alert and the fire in the furnace blasted heat at him. Across the space, the fat man seemed to notice him for the first time with disinterested eyes.

“Comfortable, motherfucker?” Orange light outlined Baldy’s features as his voice echoed in the shaft.

Dread examined the Glock. Pulling back its slide, he aimed the gun at Jake, who swallowed and waited. Dread squeezed the trigger and the gun barked. A single bullet ricocheted around the subterranean walls and Jake flinched, twisting his body on the chains. The dead men stood still and the bullet stopped whining. Baldy laughed hard, his chest heaving as he gripped his belly.

Shaking his head, Dread stepped closer to Jake. “I wish I could cap you. I’ve prayed for the chance to do you like you did us. Too bad that’s not what he brought us back for.” He nodded at the fat man, who stood up at his desk. “That little freak over there gets to take care of you. But you’ll be dead soon enough and then you’ll be on our turf.”

As Baldy continued to laugh, the fat man opened a desk drawer from which he removed a black bag. Jake knew that bag contained bad news. The man removed a collapsed tripod, which he slung over his shoulder. He moved forward, stopping a dozen feet away from Jake. He extended the tripod’s metal legs and locked them, then removed a digital camcorder and mounted it on the tripod’s head. He flipped open the LCD screen, pressed the
POWER
button, and frowned.

“The batteries are dead,” he said in a wheezing voice.

Dread rolled his eyes. “So are you, ya fat fuck. The Master didn’t bring you back here to make one of your home videos. Just do what you’re good at.”

He’s dead, too
, Jake realized. And the camcorder appeared to be a recent model.

“I do my best work when the camera’s running,” the man said.

“Stop bitching and get busy,” Baldy said.

The man studied Jake with a disappointed expression. “He’s too old.”

Chicken hawk
, Jake thought; a child molester. The worst kind of predator.

“We wanna see this pig bleed,” Baldy said. “Make him squeal.”

The man returned to the desk and set the camera bag down.

Snuff flicks
, Jake concluded. The abandoned facility must have been the man’s makeshift studio when he had been alive, and the blood on the walls and floor belonged to his victims. Dread had been correct when he called the man a freak.

The fiend opened the rolltop, and Jake saw a canvas bundle inside. The man unrolled the canvas, and a half-dozen metal instruments gleamed in the darkness, secured by leather straps.

Oh, fuck
.

Dread grinned. “You think we were bad? Clarence here was a real nasty piece of work. Used to videotape himself cutting up young boys and teenage girls. Liked to take his time and skin them alive. When they finally died, he dumped their bodies into that furnace and sold copies of the videos online. Cancer got him eight months ago and his crimes went unpunished—in this world. Doesn’t say much for you pigs, does it?”

Jake concentrated on Clarence, who closed his right hand around the metal handle of a serrated blade six inches long and two inches wide. Clarence held the weapon before his face, inspecting it, and Jake saw that a metal guard covered with shiny spikes protected Clarence’s fingers. Smiling with approval, Clarence picked up a second instrument with his other hand, this one with two narrow blades, spaced three inches apart, protruding from a wooden handle. Jake guessed the blades had been designed for gouging out eyeballs.

Crossing the space, Clarence stepped around the tripod and stood before Jake. The lenses of his glasses reflected the crackling furnace flames. “Don’t tell me your name,” he said. “I don’t want to know who you are. It’s more exciting that way.”

Jake looked around the dungeon, searching for any possible means of escape.

“I was a janitor here back when this was a printing shop. After they closed it down, I used it for my own purposes.”

Clarence raised his knife for Jake to see up close, waving it as a boy might a model airplane. The blade could cut Jake, slice him, dice him, and flay him.

“Now tell me: what does Nicholas Tower want with all those souls?”

Down to business
, Jake thought. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Who are these guys working for?

Clarence smiled. “Thank you.”

Clarence stepped closer, the knife poised to strike, and Dread and Baldy grinned at each other with anticipation. Jake’s body tensed up. Taking a deep breath as Clarence fell within his reach, he swung his legs up and scissor-kicked them, trapping Clarence’s flabby neck between his left shin and his right calf. Gasping and wide-eyed, Clarence pounded on Jake’s thighs. His glasses fell off and Jake saw bulging eyes with heavy lids. He knew that hesitating would give Clarence time to drive the weapons into his legs, so he thrashed to his right, snapping the dead man’s neck with a sickening crack. Clarence’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and his blades clattered on the floor. Jake thrashed to his left, but this time Clarence’s neck made no sound. The body toppled to the floor and Jake lowered his legs.

Baldy shook his head in disbelief. “Motherfucker.”

Jake swallowed. It had felt good to dispose of an enemy as twisted as Clarence, and now he knew that the dead men could be slowed, possibly even stopped. Hearing a choking sound below him, he looked down to see if Clarence possessed some supernatural ability to reconstitute himself. Instead, Clarence’s body burst into flames and the fat man wailed. Jake felt heat blasting up at him and he jerked his head back, looking away. His eyes teared up and the stench of burning hair and flesh permeated his nostrils. The flames reached as high as his sternum and he held still to keep his legs from swinging into the bonfire. He turned his head enough to see the flames cast twisted shadows on the cellar walls. The fire consumed Clarence, who struggled to move like a turtle on its back. Dread and Baldy launched themselves forward, panic in their eyes.

I’m next
, Jake thought as they charged in his direction. Powerless to stop them, he feared they would burn him alive. Instead they stooped low, each seizing one of Clarence’s flaming ankles, and dragged him back, even though it meant burning their hands. Clarence’s screams faded into whimpers, his clawed fingers leaving scorched streaks on the cement floor. With pain etched on their faces, Dread and Baldy dropped his legs, which landed with soft thumps that sent burning embers flying in all directions. Gaping at their blistered palms, they licked their raw wounds like dogs.

Turning silent, Clarence stopped writhing. His still body crackled and popped, and oily black smoke rose from the flames and drifted up the shaft. Jake wanted to retch from the sickening smell. The air became dense and Dread and Baldy turned rigid, abandoning their wounds as their eyes grew wide. At the top of the stairs, a dead lightbulb flickered on and off, and Jake swallowed. To his left, an industrial valve rotated by itself and steam hissed from a wide pipe, causing him to flinch. Dread and Baldy retreated to the furnace’s shadow, cowering.

A massive silhouette filled the doorway.

This is it
, Jake thought, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

The Reaper stepped into the fiery light and moved down the steps with the focused energy of a great white shark prowling the ocean depths. Terror blossomed in Jake as he gazed at the pulsating muscles within the fearsome body coming for him. Pink light shone from the demon’s throbbing brain, and Dread and Baldy dropped to their knees, bowing their heads.

“Master Cain!” they said in unison.

Staring at Jake, the Reaper ignored them.

Tears welled up in Jake’s eyes. He had never experienced such intense fear in his life.
Master Cain?
So the Grim Reaper had a name. Sweat stung the cut in Jake’s forehead and he shook his head. “Oh, Christ…”

The Reaper’s brain turned bloodred.
“NEVER MENTION
THAT NAME IN MY PRESENCE AGAIN.”

The booming voice echoed through the dungeon, and Jake’s entire body trembled. Clenching his teeth, he pulled on the chains, which only caused the manacles to bite deeper into his wrists, and his body swayed in the falling rain. Seeing dried blood on the manacles, he understood the blind panic that drove animals to chew through their own limbs to escape from traps.

The Reaper stepped over the burning husk that had been Clarence, passing through the hungry flames without harm or signs of concern. “Do
NOT STRUGGLE. THERE IS NO ESCAPING YOUR FATE.”

Jake allowed his weakened body to wilt. Facing the demon that had slain Laddock and Birch as if they were insects, he smelled fear in his own sweat. He possessed no hope of surviving this encounter, and he knew that he could only delay the inevitable. Still reeling from what Dread and Baldy had just called their master, he spoke with a cracking voice. “Cain—?”

The Reaper stood fifteen feet away, gazing at Clarence’s camcorder. His brain had cooled to pink again and he turned to Jake. “I
AM THE AGENT OF MY MASTER’S WILL.”

Jake swallowed.
God Almighty
. Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, brother of Abel. The man who had invented the homicide game. The demon stood as still and silent as a statue, the glowing pupils in his eye sockets pulsing. Sweat burning his eyes, Jake studied the ancient monster before him. What could a biblical celebrity like Cain possibly want with a struggling atheist like him?

“TELL ME WHAT NICHOLAS TOWER INTENDS TO DO
WITH THE SOULS IN HIS POSSESSION.”

Jake swallowed again, his throat aching. Every word that came from Cain’s mouth made him shudder. “I have no idea. Really. I swear to—” He caught himself. “I only know that he claims to have them.”
Please let him believe me
.

“I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“I
MUST HAVE TOWER’S SOUL.”

Delerium seized Jake.
“‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’“

“NO, BUT YOU ARE HIS PROTECTOR.”

Jake wiped his face on his left shoulder. “I quit that gig this morning, so don’t let me stand in your way. If you want his soul, then just take it. He’s all yours. You have my blessing.”

“I DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR BLESSING OR YOUR PERMISSION. I
MUST CLAIM TOWER’S SOUL ON MY MASTER’S BEHALF. THE ONLY THING STANDING IN MY WAY IS THE WOMAN. HER SPELLS HAVE MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME AND MINE TO MATERIALIZE IN TOWER’S PRESENCE.”

Spells?
Jake thought, recalling the invisible force that had prevented Cain from reaching him in the Tower’s lobby.
Kira’s a witch!
Could she have cast a spell over him, too? That would explain his obsessive attraction to her. Twenty-four hours earlier he would have scoffed at the notion, but not now. The muscles in his arms stretched to their limits. “The security card in my pocket will give you all the access you need.”

Cain shook his head. “To
UNDERMINE THE WOMAN’S

SPELL, YOU MUST SUMMON ME TO THE TOWER WHILE IN THE OLD MAN’S PRESENCE.”

Ah, shit
. “I don’t think I can do that…”

Interlacing the fingers of both hands, Cain cracked his knuckles. Each pop sounded like Clarence’s neck had when it snapped, and Jake cringed. The demon turned toward Dread and Baldy as if he had just remembered some minor detail. Shaking his head, Baldy gnawed on his own fingers with such force that blood dripped from them.

“Master, please!” Dread said. “We did as you commanded. He’s here in one piece. We barely touched him!” Spreading his arms wide, he realized that he still held Jake’s Glock in his right hand. He dropped the gun on the floor as if holding it meant his destruction.

Cain’s eyes flared and Dread and Baldy screamed. Bloody bullet holes appeared in their bodies where Jake had shot them and smoke billowed out of the wounds. They ignited into brilliant flames, and Jake smelled burning flesh once more as they cried out in agony. Blinded, they staggered around in desperation. With three pyres now burning, the cellar turned bright and hot. Collapsing at the same time, Dread and Baldy crawled toward their master.

“Mercy!” they cried. “Mercy …”

Cain focused on Jake as the minions threw themselves at his grisly feet and screamed. The flames grew higher, flanking the demon like pillars.
“SOON YOU, TOO
, WILL SERVE MY MASTER.”

Jake stared at the burning heaps writhing on the floor and shook his head. “Never.”

“YOUR ACTIONS HAVE ALREADY DETERMINED YOUR FATE. HELP ME NOW WITH THIS SMALL MATTER, AND I PROMISE TO SHOW YOU MERCY WHEN YOUR TIME
COMES.”

Jake stared into the demon’s indecipherable eyes. “No.”

Raising his right hand, Cain made a fist. Pain shot through Jake’s chest and an invisible force ripped a four-inch-wide strip of flesh from his collarbone to his waist. Jake screamed in agony, tears burning his eyes, and twisted his body on the chains. His screams merged with those of Dread and Baldy, forming a twisted chorus. He looked down at the gaping wound in the left side of his torso, and within the cavity he saw his bloody ribs. The strip of flesh remained connected to his waist and hung down to his left knee, pink side out. He stopped screaming and his sweat-soaked body sagged, his own odor offending him. Managing to raise his head, he mustered a weak half smile.

“YOU ARE A GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT.
MY
MASTER WILL BE PLEASED TO TORMENT YOU.”

Cain opened and closed his fist again, tearing a matching strip of flesh from the right side of Jake’s torso. His scream lasted longer this time, and he gazed up at the ceiling fan as he pulled on the chains. He twisted his body, which wilted along with his scream.