“That is an excellent point,” I said, wishing there was some way to convince her to let Bobby help me and knowing there wasn’t.
“Good. I’ll see you in a bit,” Ricky said, and the line went dead.
“See,” Bobby said as DMX began yelling again. “It’s out of my hands.”
“I know,” I said before throwing myself out of a moving car even though we were going twice the speed limit. It wasn’t my brightest idea ever.
I hit the ground hard enough to almost make me wish I hadn’t done it. Almost. I was saving my family and Ricky couldn’t stop me. Well, she could, but she wasn’t here. Only Bobby was here. Speaking of which…
Bobby’s Mercedes skidded to a stop, sliding sideways along the street and clipping a passing truck as I lay there, trying to remember how to breathe. As I got to my shaky feet, I was sort of surprised I wasn’t dead, but then again, my trench coat had taken most of the impact. Even still, judging by the way my ribs ground together as I moved, something was definitely not all happy days in my chest.
Not that it mattered. Bobby was already coming out of the still moving vehicle, his face in a twisted mixture of rage and surprise. If I didn’t do something quick, he would take me to Ricky’s compound, and this time, I was pretty sure I’d be duct taped in the trunk. Well, fuck that.
I lined up the M&P and put three shots into his forehead in one quick movement. The impact jerked him off his feet and flung him backward against the car. It wouldn’t take long for him to get up considering I’d seen him shake off a burst to the face from an AR15, but then again, I wasn’t going to be around here that long.
As the guy Bobby had clipped got out of his truck, I came around and sucker punched him with the butt of the pistol. He went down like a house of cards in a stiff wind, and after glancing inside his vehicle to make sure he didn’t have a baby or a wife inside, I grabbed the keys from his limp hand and leapt into the metallic green Ford F150. I pulled the door shut and started the car as Bobby climbed to his feet.
A moment later, I was flying down the street, but I could see Bobby coming after me in his Mercedes. Was he going to chase me all the way back to the desert? Seriously? I glanced at the gas tank and saw it was nearly full. I could stay on the road for a while. He’d better get comfortable.
I soon found myself on a lonely country road surrounded by sand and dirt. Bobby was still behind me, and as I looked at him in the rearview mirror, he flipped me the bird. I returned the gesture, and as I did, Bobby made his move. He pulled up alongside my truck until his front tire was even with my back wheel and tried to lane change through me. My car started to spin, losing traction as I was forced to turn sideways. Instead, I did the only thing I could. I pulled my foot off the gas, and slammed on the brake while pulling the e-brake.
The truck stopped hard enough for me to smack against the seatbelt, but I’d been ready for it. Bobby, unfortunately, hadn’t been. His Mercedes slammed into my truck hard enough to deploy his air bag. I took a deep breath and counted to three before popping open the door and getting out of the truck. I wasn’t sure how hurt Bobby was, but I wasn’t taking any chances since he was a werewolf.
I jerked open the door to the Mercedes to find Bobby’s eyes glassy and distant as he leaned into the air bag, sucking in labored breaths. His nose was broken, and his face was a busted mass of flesh, but he should have been up and moving already. Then again, he’d healed a lot of damage today and as far as I knew, hadn’t had a lot to eat. Maybe his healing was on timeout. Well, that was a crying shame. His plight made me smile in a purely non-homicidal way, I swear.
“Looks like you’re in a bit of a pinch,” I said as I pulled him out of the car and shoved him into the street. “You should call someone about that.” I slid into the driver’s seat and backed the Mercedes onto his pelvis, pinning him beneath the car. It made me feel a little bad, I’ll admit, but I knew he’d heal. Probably. If not, well, I’d buy Ricky some flowers and chocolate.
When I was done parking a car on top of him, I pulled the keys from the ignition and jumped back in the F150. It was pretty wrecked from the impact too, and as I tried to drive away, I knew I’d need to find another car soon. Well, that was fine. Evidently, car thief fit well on my resume.
Chapter 28
The battered truck barely made it the next twenty or so miles to the nearest rest stop. As I leapt out of the sputtering F150, I saw several expensive looking Harley Davidson motorcycles, and wouldn’t you know it, their owners all appeared to be inside the rundown-looking bar. Part of me wanted to walk inside and be all like, “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle” in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, but I didn’t really feel like getting my ass handed to me by a bunch of Hell’s Angels, especially since they’d probably wind up being weremice from Mars or something equally stupid.
Instead, I leapt onto the nicest looking bike and hotwired the vehicle with ease because I was apparently really good at the whole grand theft auto thing. As I kicked the Harley into gear, I put a round into the tires of the other bikes. Part of me felt bad about it, but I really didn’t like the idea of being chased. As I fired the last round, a whole gang of crazy-eyed bikers burst outside. I waved at them as I hit the road and zipped down the highway. A shotgun blast filled the air, but it must have missed me because I didn’t feel anything, and people say I’m not lucky.
Several minutes later, I was alone on the road and pushing the bike to the limit. I’d be back at the site of my family’s burial soon enough. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need too many bullets once I got there, especially since I’d used up a bunch of ammo on those motorcycles. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I wound up needing to shoot my way through a pack of werewolves since I only had a couple rounds left and my demonic arm was short-circuiting. I guess I’d just have to improvise. As far as plans went, it sucked, but then again, it had at least a seventy percent chance of requiring me to kick something’s ass if it got in my way which was always nice.
As I neared the turn off into the desert, I hit a pothole. The big bike lurched, forcing me to bear down and ride through it. I gunned the throttle, throwing everything I had into holding on and going for it. By the time I’d gotten control of the bike, my palms were sweating, and my heart was hammering in my chest. I looked up toward the turn, and as I did, an arm shot out from nowhere and clotheslined me across the chest.
My breath exploded from my lungs as I came off the bike and slammed helplessly to the ground. My skull hit the asphalt with a wet sounding thwack that made spots of color dance across my vision, while the Harley veered off the road, hit the sand, and toppled over like a felled tree. Well, that clinched it. Plan B was a go. Time to kick some ass.
“Why if it isn’t my good friend, Mac Brennan,” Baal said, his huge teeth gleaming as he spoke. He leaned over me, blotting out the sun with his bulbous head. “Did you miss me?”
“With every bullet so far,” I said, drawing the M&P and blasting him in his stupidly white teeth.
He snatched the bullet out of the air with his teeth and showed it to me before sucking it into his mouth and shoving it into his cheek like a demonic chipmunk.
“See, Mac, this is why you can’t have nice things.” Baal waved his hand, and the gun turned molten red in my hand. I yelped in pain and dropped the gun to the ground. It hit the street beside me and seethed there like an angry red star. The smell of melting asphalt filled my nostrils as Baal snapped his fingers in front of me to get my attention.
“What’d you have to go and do that for?” I said, glaring at him because it was pretty much all I could do. Baal pretty much had me dead to rights, but if I went down, I was going to talk a ton of shit. “Now I have to find a new bad guy to kill and steal weapons from.” I shook my head in dismay. “I know it’s sort of hard to believe, but I’m actually running low on enemies. They all tend to wind up dead.”
Baal smirked and stood up to his full height. I’d forgotten how tall the demon was. Looking at him reminded me of the time I’d seen Yao Ming standing next to Michael Jordan. It was nuts how small Jordan had looked in comparison.
The demon stretched lazily and walked around me slowly, which was something I could have done without since he was still clad in hot pink short-shorts. I wasn’t sure if he was considered fashionable in Hell, but someone really needed to explain to him how to dress on earth.
“How about you and I make a deal?” he said, squatting close enough to my forehead for me to feel the heat coming off his crotch. “You get back on your very manly little motorbike, drive back to town, and do me one teensy weensy little favor.” He put his hands on my shoulders and as he did, six inch black talons grew from his fingernails. He tapped them lightly on my trench coat before pulling aside the leather and pressing his thumb into my right shoulder joint. “How does that sound, Mac Brennan?”
“How about I punch you in your stupid fucking face?” I said, but all that made him do was dig his nail into my blackened flesh. It was just enough to slice through my T-shirt and draw a tiny pinprick of blood. I pretended like it didn’t hurt.
“How about you stop meddling in a world you don’t understand?” Baal said, dropping down on his butt and placing his long legs on my chest, pinning me there as he leaned back in the street with his hands. “And be a good little Cursed and acknowledge your place in this world.” He shrugged. “Or don’t. I’m open to going through door number two. I won’t give away the surprise, but it literally leads to Hell.”
“Why are you here in the flesh, Baal? You’ve been fucking with me since day one, and it doesn’t make sense.” The words spilled out of me before I could stop them. “You’re some badass demon right? So why me? Why fuck with me? What makes me so special?”
“Boredom is a thing,” Baal said, glancing up at the sky like he was catching the sun’s rays. “If you’re waiting for me to tell you you’re some unique special snowflake, I’m not going to do it. That’s for your demonic master to do.”
“Of course. Just telling me would ruin all the fun, huh?” I asked, gritting my teeth in frustration. The sooner we progressed to the part of this conversation where the demon let me go so I could do whatever other stupid thing it wanted, the sooner I could go get my family. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s simple really. All you have to do is—”
The rest of Baal’s words were cut off by a baseball bat to the fucking face. Green symbols flared along the length of the Louisville slugger before it exploded into fragments of wood. Baal’s entire body burst into a cloud of black mist to reveal something worse standing over me. Vassago dropped the broken handle of the glowing bat and smiled down at me like a loan shark coming to break my legs.
“Now, Mac, you wouldn’t be going and making deals with other demons would you?” he asked, and his expression changed to one of mock horror. “Remember, you already owe me for sparing that kid, and I’m not one of those guys who likes to share.” He tapped his black checkered bowling shirt with one hand. “I’m strictly a one man kind of demon, and I’ve already made an exception for you based on existing circumstances.” He gestured vaguely at my arm. “If you think I’m going to go and let you dilute the value of your favor, you’re wrong. Are we clear?”
“Crystal clear.” I swallowed hard as his emerald green eyes fixed on me.
“Good,” he said, eyeing me up and down like a prized dog at a show. “I’d hate to have to reiterate this to you. Once I’m all paid in full, you can do as you please, but until then, well, you don’t make deals with any other demons.” He stood and shrugged. “And now I’m repeating myself. ”
“Is it time to pay up?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t because if it was time to pay for him sparing Sera’s son John, I didn’t have any magic baseball bats to use on him to buy more time. Man, if only I knew what symbols Vassago had carved into the baseball bat. If I did, I could seriously fuck up some demons.
“Not yet, Mac. Soon though. Very soon. I’m a bit busy at the moment.” His grin grew wider as he bent down and patted my cheek. “But a good shepherd always watches out for his flock, just like how a pimp watches out for his hoes. It’s just good business.” He stood and pulled open the air like it was a fucking doorway. I could see his game room through the hole in reality. Some poor sap was clutching his left hand as it bled out over a pool table. The sight made me shudder.
“Ta.” Vassago stepped through the doorway and shut the door behind himself, leaving me alone in the desert, and somehow, that didn’t make me feel as comfortable as it should have.
It took me an absurdly long time to get back to my feet, gather up the fragments of broken bat, and climb back on my hog. It didn’t help that I was constantly looking over my shoulder alternatively watching for angry bikers, homicidal werewolves, and a giant demon, but hey, you take the good with the bad. I had been saved by Vassago, a prince of twenty-four realms of Hell. I bet that doesn’t happen to everyone, and even better, he’d left the fragments of his magical bat behind. If I put it together again, maybe I’d have some real demon-fighting juju.
That thought sustained me until I reached the car where my sister and her son had been. It was nearly nightfall as I pulled up, but despite the darkness falling over the site, one thing was crystal-fucking-clear. Neither of them was there and worse yet, neither was the vehicle. The whole thing was gone. The only thing that had been left behind was an empty hole in the ground and a bunch of footprints and tire tracks. I was too late.
Chapter 29
As I stared at the hole in the ground where my family had been, I whipped out my phone intending to call Ricky. I wasn’t sure why exactly. Maybe it was so she’d comfort me, or help me, or just listen to me whine. All I knew was that right now, imprint or not, fake feelings or not, I needed to hear her voice. No, need wasn’t even the right word. It was something more than that. This was the kind of need that was like being under water and struggling to breathe.