finale

"I made it to the heap, swerving, wondering when I was going to kick it. I got back to Boston and felt like shit. I made it my office, and felt like shit with the clap. I had me a couple drinks, and I'm about to go end it. So that's that." I said to my newsy buddy, and hung up. I ripped the cord out. I didn't want to talk anymore. The rip in my gut was bad enough to die from whenever I let it kill me. I had one thing left to do, and three shells left to do it with.

It was raining now. A good, hard rain. Steady as a War Drum. Sure as ****. I slid into the heap without a wince, even though my guts were exploding with pain. I had to have time to think, time to put it all together.

I slammed through the Tanner's gate for the last time, gunned it up to the door, and right through that giant carved bastard. I slammed it in park when I was inside. The rain pounded on outside, driving me forward. I ripped the .45 out, walked down the steps, and opened the door to the basement. The cultists had cleared out. Pris was gone. My heels made no sound on the granite floor. Jungle trick. Shaman stuff. Only the dripping of my guts ruined the silence.

Carol Tanner stood there, in the circle, motionless. I pulled a Lucky out of my pocket, and struck a match. I might as well have shot her as far she jumped to the sound of the match being lit. She turned to face me, and her beautiful mouth fell open.

"Save it." I said, and puffed on my cigarette. "You played it nice. Got me all worked up. So worked up, I didn't look at the angles too close. Now that I'm dying from a rip in my gut, I looked hard alright. There wasn't time for those goons to get word from Dumas. He wasn't in town. You hired a couple of louses, knowing I'd plug em'." Her jaw was clamped tight. Her perfect breasts heaved in betrayal of her masquerade. "You almost threw me off with the Greek girl, but you didn't know I took a taste test." I held up my finger. The hatred in her eyes could have slew Goliath. I chuckled and smoke my lucky.

"What really gave it away was where I found you. No woman of any pride would be in the servant quarters, unless they were a servant. Dumas summoned you, right in front of me, didn't he. I didn't get to see the finished product, but he summoned you, tamed you for what you'd done, and put you solitary. Did he fuck you in the ass? Eh? Let the boys pull a train on you?" The second one hurt her. Must be it.

"That's okay." I said, flicking the cigarette away, heaving forward. "You wanted me to thin the herd. Bust some heads, hopefully wide enough to eat from. I did at that. Dumas saw something in Priscilla that he and Valerie, your Lord and Lady, liked. Made you jealous since you'd been the only woman other than her that Dumas had fallen for. Valerie and Dumas plan to use the book to call up Big Nasty for Pris, only they double cross you and pull out a fallen Seraphim, which is much, much higher in the pecking order than a little scavenger like you."

Her white teeth glistened in the reflected light of the shattered glass. I could see her skin turning a mottled gray. I felt my lower intestine push against my fingers. I had maybe another minute. "In the end, I played the game too well. I killed the Seraphim, but also Dumas, the goons, Blindy. Everyone you fed off of for sex, and now all that is left for you is to feed off of ****."

She laughed. I was hoping for that. I held my guts in for it. I waited. 20 seconds left. "You fool. I feed off **** as well as Sex. I was tired of being Dumas' ****. I needed your Neanderthal ways to rack up a sufficient amount of carnage to free me!" She was changing before my eyes. Huge, omnivorous jaws. Wide, stooping legs. Her smooth face turned gray. I closed my eyes.

Two hours before, I was bleeding in my office, dying. Pris said words over me. A being appeared. It called itself a Seraph. Its eyes looked into mine, and it made an offer. I told it I'd think about it. Now, I felt the last beat of my heart work its way through my system. I heard it reverberate in my eardrums, and then, nothing. I stood there, dead. The human brain can survive a rediculously long time without oxygen. I thought about it for a few seconds, and said yes.

My eyes opened. Orange opalesques. She shrieked as I laughed. "I am no Demon, you pathetic worm. I was the Red Right Hand of Elohim before the Fall." I raised my .45 and thumbed back the hammer. She scurried backwards on all fours, tears falling from her deformed face. "I..." I said with a voice not my own "...am the Love of God." And I pulled the trigger.

....................

It took some getting used to. The Incubus/ Angel inside of me didn't know jack shit about Detective work, but wanted to chime in. I didn't know a lot about the Infernal Arts. So we had to meet in the middle, more than once.

Poor Pris. She was a trooper. She never knew who was bending her over the desk, but she didn't really mind, either way. The scar is still there, the scar he made. It makes me grin when he winces at the discomfort in the cold along side me. I'm sure he grinned when he used his, oh, 1000 years of Sex Magick practice to bring a girl to the brink of insanity and rub it in my face. All in all, we did okay as partners. Not like we either had a choice. He only has a few minutes before being banished back to Hell if I hadn't of accepted his offer, and I was spilling out everywhere with my guts ripped up.

In the end, Michael Reilly, Investigations, got a whole lot more interesting from that day on.