Those Who Fight Monsters (19 page)

“You know that contract of yours is unenforceable in any court, whether in this world or the next,” Morris said. “The only thing you’ve got working for you is despair. The client thinks he’s damned, and his abandonment of hope in God’s mercy ultimately makes him so.”

Dunjee shrugged. “Say you’re right. It doesn’t matter a damn, you should pardon the expression. If it’s despair that makes him mine, so be it. Bottom line: the wretch
is
mine — for all eternity.”

“Not this time,” Morris said quietly.

“Surely you’re not claiming he didn’t accept the validity of the deal. Did he come running to you because he was eager to hear stories about that famous ancestor of yours? I don’t think so, Quincey. He
knew
he was damned, and he was hoping you could find him an escape clause.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Morris told him.

Dunjee stared at him, as if suspecting a trick. “So, why are we talking?”

“Because I found one.”

“Impossible!”

“Not at all. Despair is the key, remember? Well, he doesn’t despair any more. I convinced him that his soul isn’t his to sell. Further, I spun him a yarn about how you were a con artist planning to come back when his luck changed and extort money from him, except you got arrested before you could return.” Morris shook his head in mock sympathy. “He doesn’t believe in the deal anymore, and that means there’s no deal at all.”

Dunjee’s eyes blazed. “He doesn’t
believe
?” Before Morris’s eyes, the little man began to grow and change form. “
Then I will MAKE him believe!
” The voice was now loud enough to rattle the windows, and Dunjee’s aspect had quickly become something quite terrible to behold.

Morris swallowed, but did not look away. He had seen demons in their true form before. “That won’t work, either. I slipped him a Mickey — 120 milligrams of chloral hydrate, combined with about four ounces of bourbon. He’ll be out for hours, and all the legions of Hell couldn’t wake him.”

Morris stood up then, facing the demon squarely. “The hour of midnight has come and gone, Hellspawn,” he said, formally. “You have failed to collect your prize, and consequently any agreement you may have had with this man is now null and void, in all respects and for all time.”

Morris picked up the glass he had prepared earlier. Pointing the index finger of his other hand at the demon he said, in a loud and resolute voice, “I enjoin you now to depart this dwelling, and never to enter it again without invitation. Return hence to your place of damnation, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched, and repent there the sin of pride that caused your eternal banishment from the sight of the Lord God!”

Morris dashed the contents of the glass — holy water, blessed by the Archbishop of El Paso — right into the demon’s snarling face, and cried “
Begone!
”

With a scream of frustration and agony, the creature known on Earth as Dunjee disappeared in a puff of gray smoke.

Morris took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He carefully put the glass down, then pulled out his handkerchief to mop his face. His hands were trembling, but only a little.

He looked over at Trevor Stone, who had started to snore. He would never know what Morris had accomplished on his behalf, but that was all right. In the ongoing war that Morris fought, what mattered were the victories, not who received credit for them.

Sniffing the air, he realized that the departing demon had left behind the odor characteristic of its kind.

Quincey Morris frowned, and wondered if a good spray of air freshener would get the pungent scent of brimstone out of his living room.

Justin Gustainis is a college professor living in upstate New York. He is author of
The Hades Project, Black Magic Woman, Evil Ways
and the forthcoming
Hard Spell
and
Sympathy for the Devil
. His website may be found at www.justingustainis.com

Quincey Morris, who is descended from the man who gave his life in the fight to destroy Count Dracula, is an occult investigator living in Austin, Texas.

See Me: A Smoke and Shadows Story

by Tanya Huff

“Mason, you want to move a bit to the right? We’re picking up that very un-Victorian parking sign.”

Huddling down inside Raymond Dark’s turn-of-the-19th-century greatcoat, Mason Reed shuffled sideways and paused to sniff mournfully before asking, “Here?”

Adam took another look into the monitor. “There’s fine. Tony, where’s Everett?”

Tony took two wide shots with the digital camera for continuity and said, “He’s in the trailer finishing Lee’s bruise.”

“Right. Okay … uh…” Adam was obviously looking for Pam, their PA, but Pam had already been sent to the 24-hour drugstore over on Granville to pick up medicine for Mason’s cold. He’d already sneezed his fangs out once, and no one wanted to go through that again. Tony grinned as Adam’s gaze skirted determinedly past him.

Although he’d been the 1st Assistant Director since the pilot, this was Adam’s first time directing an episode of
Darkest Night
— the most popular vampire/detective show in syndication — and he clearly intended to do everything by the book, including respecting Tony’s 2AD status. Or possibly respecting the fact that Tony was one of the world’s three practicing wizards. Even if he didn’t get a lot of chance to practice given the insane hours his job required.

CB Productions had never had the kind of staffing that allowed for respect.

“I’m done here, Adam. I’ll get him.”

“If you don’t mind…”

Chris on Camera One made an obscene gesture. “Dude, he’s with Lee.”

Tony flipped him off as he turned and headed for the trailer that housed makeup, hair, wardrobe, and, once, when the writers were being particularly challenging, three incontinent fruit bats.

Halfway there, he met Everett and Lee heading back.

Everett rolled his eyes and cut Tony off before he got started. “Let me guess, Mason’s nose needs powdering.”

“It’s a little ruddy for one of the bloodsucking undead.”

“My sister’s wedding is in
four
days,” Everett growled, hurrying toward the lights. “I’ve already rented a tux. If he gives me his cold, I’m putting itching powder in his coffin. And you can quote me on that.”

Tony fell into step beside Lee, who, unlike Mason, was dressed in contemporary clothing.

“I get that it’s artistic, the real world overlapping Mason’s angst-ridden flashback, but, after four seasons, I can safely say that our fans could care less about art and the only overlapping they want to see is James Taylor Grant,” he tapped his chest, “climbing into the coffin with Raymond Dark.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Jealous?”

Tony leaned close, bumping shoulders with the actor. “It’s basic geometry. Mason’s bigger than me and you and I barely fit.” At the time, they’d been pretty sure they weren’t coming back for another season and had wanted to go out with a bang. Tony still had trouble believing the show had hung on for four years. He had almost as much trouble believing he and Lee had been together for over two years — not exactly out, although their relationship was an open secret in the Vancouver television community.

Their own crew had survived a dark wizard invading from another reality, a night trapped inside a haunted house trying to kill them, and the imminent end of the world by way of an immortal Demongate hired to do some stunt work. Relatively speaking, the 2AD sleeping with the show’s second lead wasn’t worth noting.

Tony handed Lee off to Adam and headed down the block to check out the alley they’d be using as a location later that night. Stepping off the sidewalk and turning into the space between an electronics store and a legal aid office, he switched over to the Gaffer’s frequency with one hand as he waved the other in front of his face.

“I think we’re going to need more lights than Sorge thought, Jason. There’s bugger all spill from the…”

He paused. Frowned. The victim of the week was an impressive screamer. Pretty much simultaneously, he remembered she wouldn’t be arriving for another two hours and realized that the scream had come from in front of him, not behind him.

Had come from deeper within the alley.

“Tony?”
Adam, in his earbud.

“I’m on it.” He was already running, muttering the night-sight spell under his breath. As it took effect, he saw someone standing, someone else lying down, and a broken light over a graffiti-covered door at the alley’s dead-end. Still running, he threw a wizard lamp up into it. People would assume electricity.

The someone standing was a woman, mid-twenties maybe, pretty although overly made-up and under-dressed. The someone on the ground was an elderly man and, even at a distance, Tony doubted he’d be getting up again.

“Tony?” Lee, leading the pack running into the alley behind him.

“Call 911!” Tony snapped without turning. He’d have done it himself, but these days it was best to first make sure the screaming was about something the police could handle. Like called to like, as he’d learned the hard way. Having Henry Fitzroy, bastard of Henry VIII, romance writer,
and
vampire based in Vancouver was enough to bring in the fine and freaky. Since Tony had started developing his powers, the freaky vastly outnumbered the fine.

Dropping to one knee beside the body, he checked for a pulse, found nothing, checked for visible wounds, found nothing. The victim wasn’t breathing, didn’t begin breathing when Tony blew in two lungfuls of air so Tony shifted position and started chest compressions.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

A smudge of scarlet lipstick bled into the creases around the old man’s mouth.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

A glance over his shoulder showed Lee comforting the woman, her face pressed into his chest, his arms around her visibly trembling body.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

The old man was very old, skin pleated into an infinite number of wrinkles, broken capillaries on both cheeks. He had all his hair but it was yellow/white and his teeth made Tony think of skulls.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

His clothes belonged on a much younger man and, given what he’d been doing when he died — fly of his jeans gapping open, hooker young enough to be his granddaughter — he was clearly trying too hard.

Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.

Where the hell was the cavalry? There’d been a police cruiser at the location. How long did it take them to get out of the car and two blocks down the street?

A flash of navy in the corner of one eye and a competent voice said, “It’s okay. I’ve got him.”

Tony rolled up onto his feet as the constable took over, stepping back just in time to see Lee reluctantly allowing the other police officer to lead the woman away.

She was pretty, he could see that objectively, even if, unlike Lee, he’d never been interested in women on a visceral level. Long reddish brown hair around a heart-shaped face, big brown eyes heavily shadowed both by makeup and life, and a wide mouth made slightly lopsided by smudged scarlet gloss. Tears had trailed lines of mascara down both cheeks. Below the neck, the blue mini dress barely covered enough to be legal and he wondered how she could even walk in the strappy black high heels. She wasn’t trying as hard as the old man had been but Tony could see a sad similarity between them.

“She’s terrified she’s going to be charged with murder.” Lee murmured as Tony joined him.

“Death by hand job?”

“Not funny. You don’t know that she…” When Tony raised an eyebrow, Lee flushed. “Yeah, okay. But it’s still not funny. She really is terrified.”

“Sorry.” Tony moved until they were touching, shoulder to wrist.

The police seemed a lot less sympathetic than Lee had been.

“I’m going to see if she needs help,” he said suddenly, striding away before Tony could reply.

“This is not a reason to stop working,” Adam called from the sidewalk at the end of the alley.

“Does anyone care that I’m fucking dying over here?” Mason moaned beside him.

Standing at the craft services table, drinking a green tea, and trying very hard to remember that the camera really did put on at least ten pounds, Lee attempted to ignore the jar of licorice rope. The memory of the woman in the blue dress had kept him on edge for two days and he kept reaching for comfort food.

Movement on the sidewalk out beyond the video village caught his eye and, desperate for distraction, Lee gave it his full attention. He’d have liked to have been able to tell Tony later that he was surprised to see the woman in the blue dress again, but he honestly wasn’t. Grabbing a muffin and sliding a juice box into his jacket pocket, he picked his way through the cables toward her.