In the House of the Wicked

666

“Nice,” Remy said, shaking his head in amusement.

The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Francis’ mouth as he punched in the code, and the folding door slowly climbed to grant them access.

From where they stood, it looked like the typical storage unit filled with random boxes and old pieces of furniture.

“Is this it?” Remy asked.

“This is it,” the fallen angel responded.

Angus started inside, but Francis quickly stopped him.

“Wait a second,” he said. “I’ve installed a few security measures.”

Francis looked around to be certain they were alone, then pulled up the sleeve of his suit coat and shirt as far as he could manage and removed the glowing scalpel from an inside pocket of his coat.

Remy felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end at the sight of the instrument. “Don’t tell me that opens doors, too,” he commented, watching as Francis brought the thin blade of light toward his exposed wrist.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, making a quick cut in his flesh.

A single drop of blood escaped the gash before it was immediately cauterized. That drop landed on the threshold of the storage place, and the sight of the items stored there began to shimmer and waver out of focus.

Remy and Angus entered the shed as Francis reached up to pull the door down behind them. As soon as the folding door was closed, the space became illuminated.

Remy turned, not surprised to see that they were now standing in a room at least ten times the size of a normal storage unit; row upon row of metal shelving housed some of the special items that Francis had acquired over the years.

Angus began to laugh, heading down one of the many aisles.

“Very nice, Francis,” the sorcerer said. “I like your style.”

Remy went in the opposite direction. As he walked among the rows, he found all manner of weaponry, from pistols to rifles, from knives to spears and swords. There were enough arms in this shed alone to fortify an army.

“Find anything you like?” a voice asked from close by.

A box on a shelf in front of him slid aside and Francis peered through from the next aisle.

“Plenty, if I wanted to overthrow a third-world nation,” Remy answered.

“Haven’t done that in a while,” Francis mused.

“How is this stuff categorized?” Remy asked. “Is it even categorized?”

“Kinda sorta,” Francis answered. “I hired a high school kid a while back to get it better organized, but…”

“A high school kid?” Remy asked, aghast.

“Yeah, didn’t work out too well.”

“Imagine that.”

“Caught her trying to lift a few ounces of my powdered saints’ bones.” Francis took a box from the shelf. “Can you imagine what a snort of Saint Pelagius would do?” he asked as he peeled back the flaps on the box to look inside. “Hey, I was wondering what happened to my bowling shoes,” he said, then placed the box back on the shelf.

“Where’s Angus?” Remy questioned.

“He’s in the paper-goods section. Found some old scrolls and texts that I bought at an estate sale a few years back. They used to belong to a combat magician I’d had few run-ins with over the centuries.”

Francis disappeared for a few minutes, and then Remy saw him heading toward him down the aisle, carrying a large black gym bag. He stopped and picked up a plastic container. “These are good,” he said, pulling off the lid to reveal tiny hand grenades. They were a coppery color and covered with strange, runic designs that made them look almost like Christmas decorations.

“Grenades?” Remy asked, as Francis stuffed the container in the bag.

“Souped up for magickal barriers,” the former Guardian angel explained. “Lotsa bang for your buck.”

Remy found a black case on a bottom shelf and pulled it off, unlatching the clasps and opening the case to reveal two black service Colt. 45s. “These are nice.”

“Oh yeah,” Francis said. “With the right ammunition, the twins can be killer.”

“And do you have the right ammunition for the twins?” Remy asked, closing up the case but deciding to bring it with him.

“In the ammunition aisle. I think they’re on special today.”

Remy’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket, and he removed it to see that Linda was calling. She had already left a couple of voice messages while he had been in the shadow place; this time she was leaving a text.

Please call. Important.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and found Francis staring at him.

“Same person that called back at the motel?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Remy answered.

“Anybody I know?” Francis inquired, and for a moment Remy wasn’t sure if his friend knew who it was or not.

Francis had had a crush on Linda Somerset, and although they had never met, the former Guardian had spent many a night watching the pretty waitress at Piazza, fantasizing about a relationship that had never transpired.

It was after Francis had gone missing in Hell that Remy and Linda met and something drew them together.

Francis had yet to be told.

“Nobody that I’ve talked about,” Remy answered.

“I love it when you’re coy.” Francis headed off down another aisle. “Just as long as she keeps you from moping… I hate it when you mope. Follow me. The bullets for the twins are over here.”

They found Angus pushing a battered shopping cart filled with boxes of books and ancient-looking scrolls toward them.

“A shopping cart?” Remy looked at Francis.

“Anything to make your experience at Weapons Mart a pleasant one.”

“We just about done here?”

Angus looked into his cart and nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so. Maybe a few more this and thats, but I think we’re good.”

“Can you open a passage to my house?” Remy asked Francis. “There’s something I need to check before we get going.”

“I think I could do that,” Francis said, putting the gym bag down and rubbing his hands together. “While you’re making your booty call, Angus and I’ll check out Stearns’ place.”

Remy made a face, staring at Francis as if he didn’t know him.

“Did you just say booty call?” he asked incredulously.

“I did,” the former Guardian answered, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before starting to conjure the passage that Remy would use to get to his car. “It was the word of the day on my calendar,” he said, as the air before them grew incredibly thin. He reached out to tear through it, revealing another place on the other side.

“And I swore I’d use it in a sentence.”

The little black bugs tasted like peanuts-peanuts boiled in bat piss and then sprinkled with dried shit, but, yeah, he could taste peanuts somewhere in the rancid mix.

Squire took a handful of the squirming insects and dropped them in the pan of boiling black oil. He’d never get used to the screams the little fuckers let out when they went into the hot drink. This brought a smile to the hobgoblin’s face as he squatted before the tiny fire in the shelter he’d made from the skin and bones of one of the shadow region’s larger predators.

There’s no place like home, he thought, stirring the boiling bugs. The little beasties had already started to break down, releasing their fine, stinking aroma.

He couldn’t stop thinking of another home…not his home, but one that felt like the home he’d lost. All he’d seen was the motel room, but Squire got a sense of the world he’d passed into almost immediately. It wasn’t like the one he’d left in ruin, but then again, it was.

Cable television, pork rinds, Internet porn, dollar stores, Doritos; he bet they were all there. He could feel it in the pit of his protruding belly. So much like the one he’d had to abandon.

He poured his steaming bug stew into the open end of a hollowed-out shell and carefully began to eat.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that other world, but he had to. There was no sense in getting attached to another, only to have it yanked away like the first. Squire wasn’t sure he could survive another loss like that.

He sipped at the edge of the shell bowl, sucking pieces of beetles into his mouth. He chewed them quickly, searching for that peanut taste before the other, less appetizing ones, kicked in.

Nope, this was his home now. And it was just the way he liked it: dark, cold and bleak. Nothing to get attached to.

Through the membranous cover of the shelter he’d erected, Squire thought he saw a flash of something…something so bright that it cut through the pervasive shadow like an ax blade through muscle. He sat, sipping his meal, eyes locked to where he thought he’d seen it, waiting in case it happened again.

And it did.

The sudden explosion of light was bright, and it left dancing snowflakes of color on his eyes, now used to the total darkness of the world of shadow.

Downing the remainder of his bug stew, he placed the empty bowl on the ground at his feet and rose to check out what was happening outside.

Squire pulled aside the flap of skin and stepped out into the harsh environment. His goblin eyes scanned the shadows.

“Big fucking surprise,” he grumbled as he caught sight of the mansion that had been nothing but trouble since it had entered his world.

The explosion of light came again, and Squire witnessed firsthand the aftereffects. The air around the mansion pulsated like a long black curtain billowing in the wind. It was as if the very substance of the shadow realm was being tested, reminding him of the time just before the mansion had first appeared.

“That ain’t good,” Squire muttered. He had a bad feeling about what he was seeing, and as he listened to the wails and moans of the various life-forms of this dark, alternate reality, he knew they could sense it, too. Squire always knew that the residents of the mansion were troublemakers, but now he suspected they were something worse than that.

Another flash erupted from the front of the building and radiated out from all of the windows. A rapidly expanding halo of fluctuating darkness around the home again began to show signs of duress.

Squire had a sudden, sinking feeling in his awesome gut that the shadow realm was being threatened, that whatever was going on inside that house was doing something to the fabric of this world’s shadowy existence.

Something that it might not be able to recover from. And then where would that leave Squire?

“Up shit’s creek without a paddle.” The hobgoblin answered his own question, knowing at that very instant what he had to do.

Squire turned and went back into his shelter. He was going to need a few things. From the corner he hefted the old leather golf bag into a standing position and reviewed its contents. There were a few swords, a spear, and his personal favorite: a battle-ax. He had made many of those over the years, but these were the last of them. His babies, tools of his violent trade that he had not been able to part with.

Squire figured that this would be more than enough to deal with what he would find inside the mansion. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he headed out across the sprawling expanse of shadow.

He’d been wanting to have a little chat with his new neighbors. Now seemed as good a time as any.