Page 8 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

8

Loren

I found Lieutenant Dale Abernathy in a sketchy part of town near the clubs where drugs flowed freely and prostitutes loitered on shadowy street corners. It came as a surprise that an established police presence hadn’t done more to scare away the seedy element. That was what I thought until I spent a few hours tailing the lieutenant on his rounds. He threw a jacket over his uniform, didn’t flash his badge and, when he wandered back to his blacked-out patrol car with a hooker in tow, she wasn’t wearing handcuffs.

Sully was right; he was a bad cop.

Finding my marks was the easy part. If I was within a mile or so, I could sniff them out. I’d learned to recognize the taint Moira put on her victims’ souls. It was overly sweet, like wilting roses with a touch of decay.

Abernathy had that smell. Whitney did, too. Since my fellow hellhound was almost a century older than me, I knew that our mistress’s influence didn’t fade with time, so I must have borne her scent, as well.

I sat on the platform of a corroded fire escape with my glaive stretched across my lap. My fingers rolled along the cool metal shaft. Made of dusky gray steel and forged from darkness, the weapon was always close at hand. Every hellhound had a weapon, though the types varied. Whitney wielded a military saber, a one-handed sword that struck lightning quick, slashing through midsections and raking up exposed ribs. I’d seen others equipped with daggers, battleaxes, and broad, two-handed swords that rent the air with great, staggering swings.

My glaive was almost six feet long with a curved blade on one end. Not quite as hooked as a reaper’s sickle, it was suited to sweeping blows that severed limbs and lopped off heads. In my hundred years in Moira’s service, I’d used the weapon to send countless souls on the swift journey to Hell.

I’d attended my share of contract signings, as well. Demons were powerful, but their reign was limited to Hell. They needed escorts to visit Earth and, even then, could only stay here for a short time. That was where we hounds came in. Like guide dogs, we shepherded our demon masters or mistresses to and from the mortal plane.

On the street below, the lieutenant started his car but left the headlights off as he rolled around the corner into a narrow alley. Boxed in on three sides, he made himself vulnerable. But the prostitute was an unforeseen obstacle.

Whatever they were up to wouldn’t take long, but I needed to get closer in the meantime. Once the officer satisfied his carnal urges, I would have him right where I wanted him.

Sliding down the fire escape’s corroded ladder, I dropped onto the sidewalk. With my polearm tucked tightly to my side, it was almost obscured by the darkness that fell across Brooklyn. I walked quickly, passing the line of people gathered outside a strip club.

Techno music thrummed, riding waves through the air. Car horns honked, adding to an uncomfortable cacophony that made my sensitive ears ring. I steered away from all of it and crossed the road at a gap in traffic.

Pressing against the brick and glass exterior of a 24-hour drugstore, I rounded the corner into the alley. My hound panted and paced inside me as we closed in on what, to him, was a ball to be fetched.

Hunt , he urged.

I could practically feel his drool dripping down my spine.

I shushed him and twisted my hand around the shaft of my glaive, taking up a post around the edge of the building where streetlamps failed to dispel the encroaching night.

The patrol car swayed and rocked on its tires, and my ears pricked to the sounds of muffled groans. I tapped the blunt end of my weapon against the pavement while counting seconds and yellow cabs passing by until I heard the car door creak open, then slam shut.

I kept my head turned away as the scantily clad woman skirted past, reeking of fresh sex. My hound snorted and snuffled like the Big Bad Wolf while I, too, tried to clear my senses of the bitter stink that only got stronger as I closed on the patrol car. The lieutenant must have barely had time to stuff his cock back into his pressed navy slacks before the vehicle’s taillights flashed red, catching me in their glow.

Lurching forward, I rounded the back bumper and aimed the butt end of the polearm at the driver door window. With a jab and a loud pop, the glass spiderwebbed. Stabbing it again cleared a path for me to flip my glaive around and thrust the blade through the opening as the officer swung the door open into me.

It struck my midsection and knocked me backward, but the polearm had already found its mark. The lieutenant rose from his vehicle with a stripe of deep red blood opening across his throat.

He stopped, staggered, and grabbed at his wound while I withdrew. Blood bubbled between his fingers and coated his hand. He garbled a choked sound.

I released my glaive, and it dissipated into darkness. I would have preferred the officer remained in his car to contain the gore that was now running out on the cracked asphalt, but I couldn’t risk hanging around to rearrange the scene.

When Abernathy hit the ground on both knees, I turned to leave. But the crack of gunfire stopped me.

A bullet ripped through me as a searing sensation. I braced against it and spun, reaching into the shadows for my weapon again. It reformed in my grasp as I faced the formerly downed cop now on his feet and looking spry for a man whose jugular had been severed.

Usually, the sound of shots fired would draw an immediate crowd, but those who frequented this part of town knew better than to insert themselves in nefarious business.

My hound growled as the cop sighted down the barrel of his pistol.

“So, the devil finally found me.” The lieutenant’s voice had a wet rattle. “You should’ve known that wouldn’t work.”

He considered his gun, then gestured to the bullet wound closing on my chest, leaving behind a wet spot that soaked my sweater front and back.

“Guessing this won’t do the trick on you, either,” he said.

I shook my head.

Invulnerability in battle, I reminded myself. That was Abernathy’s deal. I hadn’t counted on my sneaking up and slitting his throat being considered any kind of battle. Situations like these made me wish I could read the infernal contracts Moira wrote instead of simply being told to execute them.

While Abernathy lowered his weapon, I retained a grip on mine, barring it between us as he looked me over.

“What’s it like there?” he asked. “Down below?”

As the last thing some people saw before they died, I had fielded scores of questions about life, death, and everything in between. I’d been asked about Hell before, but I didn’t have much in the way of insight.

“It’s hot,” I grunted.

“You don’t say.”

With a mustache, crew cut, and a wide, flat mouth, the lieutenant looked a bit like a toad. His features sagged into a droopy frown the longer he stared at me.

“I’m in no hurry to die, you know,” he added after a pause. “I don’t suppose anyone is.”

Another shake of my head answered him .

“Chatty fella, aren’t ya?” Abernathy chuckled while fiddling with the slide of his gun.

My hound bristled. Hunt, he insisted as if our prey wasn’t standing scant feet away.

What he meant was kill, and why was I taking so long? It didn’t bear explaining that killing the lieutenant was a puzzle I had yet to solve.

I’d almost decided Moira assigned me this job out of spite when Abernathy broke the growing quiet.

“May not be able to kill ya,” he mused, “but I can slow ya down.”

The gun fired again, and pain ripped up my leg. My hound yelped as I staggered and nearly went down, leaning heavily on my glaive while the hot piece of lead burned through my thigh.

The patrol car door shut with the cop inside. He revved the engine then gunned it, and the vehicle lurched backward.

I swung the blade end of my glaive toward the tires. It caught the front one, slitting the rubber and letting loose a whoosh of air. The lieutenant swore through the broken window as the vehicle veered wildly. It smashed into the wall of the alley where metal scraped against masonry with a spray of fiery sparks. The racket invaded my ears, almost as aggressive as a physical assault. I staggered as the car continued backing, then let out a growl before sprinting after it. The pain in my leg subsided to a dull ache while thick, black blood dribbled past my knee.

A rush of adrenaline hit me, and speed kicked in as I leaped toward the retreating vehicle. I landed on the hood hard enough to dent it, then sunk my shadowy claws into the metal to anchor myself in place.

Smoke curled from my feet where I crouched and glared through the windshield at the stricken cop. I swung my polearm around, cracking the shaft against the glass and splintering it.

The engine roared beneath me as the car sped backward. I slipped, falling onto my knees while digging my claws deeper into the hood. A bestial snarl ripped up my throat.

Traffic was thinning. It was late enough that most people had arrived at their nightly destinations. It left space in the road for the patrol car to maneuver awkwardly, bumping over a curb where it nearly collided with a fire hydrant before shifting into drive.

The windshield cracked again as a bullet rocketed through it. I felt the kiss of its heat as it whizzed past my cheek.

My hound snapped his teeth and snarled, pushing me to forfeit my grip on the hood and wield my polearm with both hands. This was definitely a battle now. I couldn’t kill Abernathy this way, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking shots at me.

I thrust my glaive forward, then threw it like a javelin through the hole in the windshield. It plunged into Abernathy’s chest, pinning him to his seat. He bellowed in pain.

The patrol car screeched to a stop in the middle of the street, perpendicular to oncoming traffic.

Horns honked, and brakes squealed as cars veered around us. I managed to tune them out until one pair of headlights bore down on us with unrelenting speed. Too fast to be driving in busy Brooklyn and approaching far too quickly considering the cop car obstacle blocking three lanes.

A final, lingering horn blast served as a warning I had no time to heed before a boxy white van collided with the front quarter panel of Abernathy’s car. The terrible crunch folded the hood and sent me flying. I hit the pavement, skidding across grit that ripped up both sides of my spine. The impact knocked the air out of me, and I lay gasping, reminding myself that I was a dead thing, and I didn’t need to breathe.

My hound whined shrilly like a siren going off in my ears.

One gunshot may have gone unnoticed, but Abernathy had wasted three bullets on me, and pedestrians couldn’t ignore traffic piling up around the crumpled cars leaking engine oil and fumes.

I shoved myself to sitting, searching for my glaive and realizing belatedly that I’d left it lodged in Abernathy’s chest. The weapon jutted through the squad car’s fractured windshield, drawing the attention of concerned strangers who flocked around the damaged vehicles. I watched with them as my polearm disintegrated into ash, and the lieutenant slumped sideways, lifeless. The crash had done my job for me.

My jostled ribs popped into place as I picked myself up off the ground. Bystanders gawked. When I moved toward them, they parted like a receding wave. I was bloodied but barely bruised by the time I made it through the gaggle of onlookers and down the next block. Another alley lined with smelly dumpsters provided the cover I needed to face a graffitied patch of wall, draw a portal, and step through it.