Burned (10 page)

Very slowly, Emi scooted herself out from under the car and sat up like the goddamned Undertaker. Her eyes met mine, and my heart leapt violently against my ribcage in a surge of panic. My throat seized up as I looked for somewhere to hide, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere available. Fuck. Double fuck.

“What did you say?” she whispered and somehow her words carried through the air and slammed into me like a gut punch. I staggered backward, falling against the car as Emi got to her feet in jerky, robotic movements.

“Mac, get in the car,” Danton cried, leaping across the hood and jerking open his car door. He slid into the driver’s seat as I climbed to my feet. Emi was already standing at the gate, glaring at me with such fury I was worried I might spontaneously combust.

“I’m sorry,” I said, raising my hands even though I was still slumped against the door. I didn’t mean any offense.”

“Get the hell out of here before I get mad, Mac Brennan,” she growled and flames leapt from her mouth as she spoke. She fixed me with another glare and my clothing began to smolder. Smoke poured out from beneath my trench coat as I scrambled to open Danton’s car despite the pain gnawing at my flesh. Somehow, the idea of being burned alive played second fiddle to the possibility of Emi leaping over that gate.

The car door’s handle was hot enough to sear my flesh, but I didn’t care. The urge to get away from the creepy little gremlin woman was so strong I could barely think past the need to escape. In fact, only one other thought even flitted through my brain as I threw myself in the seat. She knew who I was, and she was pissed. It was followed by another thought. How did she know who I was?

As I opened my mouth to ask about it, Danton stomped on the gas. The tires caught the asphalt in a squeal of rubber that propelled us forward. My open door slammed shut under the force of the momentum as Danton sped out of the neighborhood.

Danton whirled around the corner in a surge of speed that threw me against the car door. People watched us from nearly every window, and from the looks they gave us, Emi might as well have been downright friendly.

“I can’t believe you brought up
that
movie. Do you have some kind of death wish?” Danton said, his voice tight with anger and fear as he burst out of the curve and nearly careened into a parked car at three times the speed limit. “Jesus Christ, man.” His face got pale, and he glanced at the angel on the dashboard. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t know,” I said as my heart started to return to its normal, less-frantic pace. “I’m new to this whole supernatural gig.”

“Not knowing isn’t an excuse. It’s a way to get dead.” He shook his head angrily. “You know how difficult it’s going to be to get the gremlins to help us again now? It’s not like I can just send them a fruit basket.”

“Is that because they can’t eat it after midnight?” I asked without thinking, and as the words left my mouth, I could have sworn a cold stare settled on the back of my neck.

“Keep it up, and you’ll be dead really soon,” Danton replied, gunning the engine as we sped toward the neighborhood’s exit. “Then I can just mail them your body as penance.”

“You know, if you keep saying things like that, I’m going to start thinking we aren’t friends.” I smiled at him, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. “And I tend to shoot people who lead me into confrontations with homicidal maniacs if they aren’t my friend.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you used all your bullets on the harbinger then,” Danton replied moments before the manhole cover in front of us burst out of the street and came flying right through the windshield.

Chapter 15

The heavy manhole cover tore through the center of the windshield and sliced through the hooptie’s ceiling like a buzz saw. As glass and debris turned the air around us into a razor-sharp cyclone, the metal cover slammed into the back window with enough force to damned near tear the top off of the car. Danton, undeterred by the attack, slammed down on the gas, evidently going with the tried and true method of just running his problems over.

The four-foot-tall scaly green creature wearing painter’s overalls in front of us grinned, revealing a mouth full of razorblades before leaping into the air. As flesh sloughed off its body, thin membranous wings spread out between its under arms and torso, reminding me of a flying squirrel only less cuddly. Buffeted by the air beneath its wings, the creature cleared the hundred-foot distance in an instant and slammed down on our hood. The front of the car bowed with a shriek of metal as the thing clambered forward like a homicidal gecko hell-bent on selling us car insurance. As Danton jerked the wheel hard to the left and slammed on the break, it reared back and swiped at us.

The creature’s yellowed claws swept by me as it tumbled sideways. Its toes and fingers dug huge gouts into the car as it tried to steady itself against the vehicle’s sudden change in momentum. Before it could, Danton pushed the gas pedal to the floor and sent the car lurching forward in a squeal of burning rubber.

“Get it off the car before other gremlins come!” Danton cried while trying to pull the car out of its horrible swerve. It didn’t work. We collided with an ornamental mailbox covered in ceramic ducks. The mailbox exploded in a cloud of porcelain fragments as one of our wheels came up onto the sidewalk.

A green fist punched straight through the passenger window, missing my head by inches and peppering my face with shards of safety glass. The gremlin reached in, grabbing onto my seatbelt as the rest of its body clung to the metal like the aforementioned gecko.

“I don’t want any damned car insurance!” I cried, elbowing it in its crocodile-toothed maw. It squawked angrily, locking its yellow eyes onto me as I shoved my palm between its eyes. “Ignis!”

Its reptilian eyes narrowed in anger moments before my fireball caught it full in the face, and for a second, time seemed to stop. I could almost feel the rage and anger coming off of the gremlin before it was blown off the car in a shriek of tortured steel that left huge claw marks on the side of the vehicle. Maybe we’d be needing that car insurance after all.

The gremlin hit the ground and tumbled away as Danton righted the car and aimed us toward the neighborhood’s exit once again. We hurtled forward, coming off the curb with a heavy thump that threw a cascade of sparks into the air. The exit was only about fifty feet from us now, but at least forty more of the reptilian gremlins stood between us and it.

More swarmed from every which way, all dressed in a weird assortment of trade uniforms. It was like we’d kicked a beehive full of electricians and welders, only, you know, I’d never seen a plumber shed his skin and become a flesh-eating lizard person before.

“What the fuck!” I screamed as Danton gunned the engine.

“Try and make a hole!” Danton yelled back, and needing no further persuasion, I called upon my power.

“Ignis!” I cried, calling to life a huge amount of Hellfire.

I let the blast fly straight at the center of the surging gremlins. They scurried out of the way, weaving past my attack like it was in slow motion. Danton must have anticipated this because he surged forward in a squeal of burning rubber and hit the hole in their blockade. We careened past the creatures and out into the street, narrowly avoiding a tooled up F150 as it turned into the neighborhood.

We served out through the oncoming lane and into the dirt field beside the complex before Danton halted our momentum and pulled us back onto the road. Sparks flew off the back of the car, mostly due to the rear bumper hanging off the hooptie’s back end. I watched the bumper catch a pothole and rip off the car. It bounced a few times, but Danton didn’t seem to care about it very much. I guess given the car’s sad state, what good was crying about a lost bumper?

“Next time I tell you to shut your damned mouth, you do it, Mac,” Danton growled, taking a second to glare at me before bursting through the red light amid a screech of horns and tires as people struggled to avoid him. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” I said, hardly able to catch my breath as adrenaline surged through my veins. “Never mention movies around gremlins. Got it.”

Danton sighed. “They’re a little touchy ever since the gnomes put out those movies. Afterward, people started making fun of them, and they decided there was only one way to get respect back. Fear. Normally, they flay people who bring them up.” He gestured at the destroyed car as the side mirror ripped off the passenger door and flew off into the road. “This was them being nice.”

“Awesome,” I muttered, hoping I wouldn’t run into anymore of the little monsters anytime soon. Either way, one thing was clear. I needed to get some more ammunition. “They know who I am. Should I be worried?”

“I doubt it, but the next time you call a plumber, you want to make sure he’s over six feet tall. It’s hard to know if a person is just short or a gremlin until they try to eat your face. Since gremlins like to fix things and are pretty good at it, having a gremlin mechanic isn’t so bad.” He shot me a grin. “I might get Emi to fix up my baby after this is all said and done. She might hate me, but she loves to work on cars.”

“Uh, huh,” I said, thinking it would be easier and cheaper to just get a new car. It wasn’t like this gold monstrosity had been particularly awesome before its date with the gremlins. “So what’s the plan now?”

“We go to the bar and apprehend Sal,” Danton said, thumping his hand on the steering wheel. I was amazed it didn’t fall off. “Then we make him tell us where your family is before throwing him off a building. Sound like a plan?”

“You know, for someone who is remarkably good at nearly getting me killed, you do know what I like,” I replied, marveling at how the angel bobble-head had, somehow, remained pristine despite being in a car that had been all but ripped to shreds.

“Call it a gift.” Danton shot me a grin. “Are you any good at pool?”

“I honestly have no idea. Why?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at the demon hunter. “It isn’t like we have time to go shoot pool. We’ve got a Cursed to kick in the teeth a few dozen times, or have you forgotten?”

Danton glanced at the angel on the dashboard. “My gut is just telling me we’ll need to play some pool, and I’ve learned to listen to my gut. I suck at pool, darts, and pretty much every other kind of bar game. So whatever happens is up to you.”

“You better hope you never confront Vassago then,” I murmured as I tried to remember if I knew how to play pool. If I was even half as good at pool as I was at darts, we’d probably be fine, but then again, I had no idea if I’d even picked up a cue stick before. I guess we’d find out.

“I plan to never ever confront Vassago.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel nervously. “Baal is one thing, but Vassago is a whole different thing. Baal is like that annoying guy in the movies who does really well until all his bodyguards get killed. Then you realize he’s just some pint-sized punk. Dealing with Vassago is different.” He swallowed hard. “Vassago is like Chuck Norris with the temperament of Heath Ledger’s Joker.”

“So what you’re saying is Vassago’s tears cure cancer, but he never cries?” I asked, trying to picture the demon throwing karate kicks. It was an image that did not compute. Then again, Vassago had been powerful enough to light me on fire with an eye blink. Maybe he didn’t need to throw a sick roundhouse kick.

“Vassago
can
cure cancer without shedding a tear.” Danton shot a sad look at me. “Actually, he’s exactly that type of demon who does that sort of thing. You know that poor schlub sitting inside a hospital hoping their two-year-old gets through leukemia? Those are the guys Vassago preys upon. He comes to the hopeless and dejected and offers them an out. Sure, his out is filled with razor-wire, lava, and spiders, but it’s an out, and a lot of people will take any lifeline. Even if it’s a live rattlesnake.”

“What does he have on you?” I asked, glancing at Danton. Something about the way he said those words made me worried he knew from experience. It also concerned me in a completely different way. When I’d saved Sera’s son John from the demon, I’d wound up owing Vassago a favor. If he was anything like what Danton suggested, I was really sure I wouldn’t like paying it back, assuming of course, my cat demon didn’t incinerate me on the spot. Oh well, bridges and crossing.

“He doesn’t have anything on me, Mac. But I’ve seen people who he’s got scratch on. It never ends well, even when he doesn’t get their souls.” He shivered and his eyes got a far off vacant stare. The kind I’d remembered seeing on documentaries about holocaust victims. Well, that was just great.

Chapter 16

Thanks to the roof of our stupid car being torn asunder, I was soaked to the bone by the time we reached the bar. Apparently, Danton’s stupid angels couldn’t be bothered to keep it from raining cats and fucking dogs while we waded through rush hour traffic with no roof. There had even been a brief moment where I’d opened an umbrella inside the cab of the car, but thanks to not having a windshield, it was almost immediately torn from my hands and sent careening into the rain soaked street where it disappeared under the wheels of a honking taxi. To be fair though, the taxi was honking before I lost control of the umbrella.

“You’re clearly not praying hard enough,” I grumbled, adjusting my trench coat for the millionth time in a vain attempt to keep cold water from dripping down the back of my neck. “Because it’s still raining.”

“I spent all my prayers on not getting pulled over,” Danton said before taking a huge drag on his cigarette. “Imagine what would have happened if we’d gotten ourselves arrested.”

“I’d have gone all demonic hand on some cops and stolen their dry car?” I glared at him, and he blew a smoke ring in my general direction. I had half a mind to grab his stupid cigarette and put it out on his equally stupid face, but that would have been petty. It didn’t help that most of the remaining ceiling covered him so he wasn’t nearly as wet as me.

“You say that, but I have a hard time believing you’d kill cops just to stay warm,” Danton said, pushing open his car door and getting outside. No sooner was he standing in the wet parking lot than the rain above turned from a heavy downpour to barely a sprinkle.