Chicago Witch Trials, Part I: Straight Outta Hell

Recommended reading:...Um. So this is the start of a multipart "season finale" of sorts so...everything:)

Outrunning cops is easy when you’re a monster. Unfortunately, stopping to save that girl from bleeding to death made me lose Irma. I’d also underestimated just how fucking bad Chicago smelled. It made it impossible for me to regain Evil Bitch’s scent. So with little choice, I busted into a local thrift store, stole some clothes (a baggy hoodie, loose jeans, and running shoes) and laid low for a couple of days. All the calendars were saying that it’d been over ten years since Irma had “killed” me in this world. As far as Chicago went, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Apparently that club I’d fought Irma at had been built over the gas station. I managed to resist for a few days, especially in case the club had cameras that had tagged me. But, eventually, I swung by Gramps’ place, if only to see if it was still standing.

Now I know you’re probably asking, “But, Prez, what about that giant lightsaber butcher knife you were waving around. And, oh, also, WHY ARE YOU A DEMON WEREWOLF STRAIGHT OUTTA HELL NOW?!?!”

Sigh…

The “lightsaber butcher knife” currently resided inside a fanny pack I’d snagged from thrift store. The thing could shrink to, well, the size of a butcher knife if I needed it to. Some local thugs snickered and pointed at the fanny pack, but my aura of not-to-be-fucked-with kept them from doing anything more. Luckily for them. The constant sounds coming from the city were giving me a migraine that was making it near impossible for me to rest. A constant reminder that the Guardian didn’t belong in this world. The monster was getting restless. It wanted out. It wanted blood.

“Just wait a little longer,” I muttered darkly, thinking of Irma. “Meal time’s coming, big guy.”

Turns out that Gramps’ place was still standing, if just barely. And judging by the looks of it, it had become a place of refuge for Chicago’s bum population. The outside was completely tagged up, and the inside was a trash city. It wasn’t too surprising that the tv had been swiped, but the little future that was left had been reduced to scraps of wood and moly fabric. There were also rats. A LOT of rats.

I ate a few of them.

I’m not proud. But it is what it is.

Afterwards, I trudged into what had once been Gramps’ bedroom. I tried to convince myself that I could still smell his old cologne, but I couldn’t really, not even with the Guardian’s sense of smell. If anything, the monster inside me was throwing a tantrum; overwhelmed by the odor of all this garbage, if he’d had his way, we’d have transformed and jumped straight through the ceiling to get some fresh air. I grit my teeth, mentally told him to get a grip, and closed and then reponed my eyes. Warm heat filled the pupils of my eyes as everything turned red. It worked exactly like infrared vision. Yet on top of heat signatures, the Guardian’s Eye let me see signs of “Those That Don’t Belong.”

It worked on ghosts, necros, mages, and thralls. Sometimes it worked on other supernatural creatures that didn’t fall into the listed categories, but not all. The Guardian had a job: Find people fucking around with life and death and eat them. Literally.

Don’t look at me like that. I was totally cool with being gas station clerk, remember?

Anyway, I used the Eye to look around, see if there were any ghosts hiding around. If they gave me useful info, I’d curb the Guardian’s appetite and allow them to “Boo!” another day. But the Eye came up empty. No ghosts. No bums. Just me and the demon dog in my head alone in a not-haunted house.

“Maybe I could check up on Mom and Dad,” I thought aloud.

…

“Yeah. Fuck that.”

I sighed and started towards the door. There was a piercing squeak as my foot put too much weight on a moldy floorboard. I looked down and spotted something sticking out between the cracks. I turned off the Eye and hunkered down.

I pulled it free and saw that it was a photo. The people it showed were washed out shadows, but I recognized them at once. Me standing next to Gramps on my tenth birthday. Feeling my eyes start to sting, I turned the photo over. On the back, in his miraculously decipherable scrawl, my grandfather had written:

Prez

You’re a good boy. A good man. Don’t let no one tell you differently.

I love you, son.

P.S. Don’t let nobody fuck with my tv.

“Too late for that, Gramps,” I laughed, tears spilling down my cheeks. Had he written this just before he’d passed? The memory of talking to him in the afterlife, walking away from joining him in Heaven, choosing to hunt down Irma Oz instead, still burned in my heart like a raging fire. During the really bad days in Hell, it’d nearly destroy me. You don’t know regret until you’ve given up on going to FUCKING HEAVEN. When you’re being hunted in another world, on the cusp of dying. Again.

But the memory also fed my rage.

A rage so unyielding, it’d let me tame one-third of Cerberus the Guardian Dog of Hell.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr! he growled inside my head. I inclined my head back towards the living room, towards the door. I heard people outside the house. They moved too quietly to be bums or even cops. I activated the Eye again. Through the walls I saw-

“Necros,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes. One of them was standing out on the sidewalk in front of the house. The other one had positioned themselves on the rooftop of one of the buildings across the street. Unlike normal people who showed up as muddy orange blobs to the Eye, necros (or necromancers if you wanna get technical about it) were alight with blue light. The more powerful the necro, the brighter the blue. The necro just outside the building was bright, don’t get me wrong. But the one on the rooftop was a goddamn supernova of ghostly energy. So much so that Cerberus was now clawing at the inside of my skin, desperate to get at them.

Dogs are idiots. Hell’s guardian is no different.

I pocketed the photo as I turned around in a circle. Neither of the necros had called up any ghosts. The closest one was just standing outside, waiting.

“So you’re good cop,” I muttered. If I tried to run, the other, more powerful necro would chase after me. We’d fight. I’d probably lose. And Irma gets off scot-free. I exhaled deeply and started towards the front door. I unzipped the fanny pack as I did so just in case. Cerberus growled in distaste. He and Harpe hated each other, but they’d have to deal. Sometimes you’ve gotta fight blue fire with blue fire. I stepped outside, hands up, and called out, semi-sarcastically, “Don’t shoot.”

The necro-a stout old lady wearing a sun hat-released a startled gasp. She took a step back, nearly tripping off the curb. She recognized me, but I was damn certain I’d never seen her before in either of my two lives.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Er, hey.”

To her credit, she recovered fast.

“Kennedy Washington?” she asked.

“Close,” I replied. “You’re missing a president. But Prez’ll do, ma’am.”

“Prez,” the lady repeated, more to herself.

Okaaaaaaay. She definitely knew something I didn’t. Despite Cerberus now barking nonstop in my brain, I asked in as calm a voice as I could manage, “And you are?”

The lady pulled off her hat and held it to her chest. “My name is Raelyn Nicolo.” She inclined her head. “But, judging by the fire in your eyes, there’s no need for me to explain what I am. Is there, Prez?”

I shrugged. “You’re a necro.”

“Heh,” Realyn said. “Necro. Haven’t heard anybody use that term in centuries. By that logic, do you categorize yourself as a ‘flesh mage’?”

“I am what I am, ma’am,” I replied. “Not by choice. But I’m done bitching about it.” I directed my gaze towards her partner. “So what’s the plan with you two? You know who I am. Or who I was. I don’t wanna fight. But if you’re anything like the necros I met on the other side, you’ve already made up your mind.” I sighed and took a step back into the shadows cast by the porch. “But I ain’t dying ‘till I find Irma Oz, tear her fucking head off, eat her heart, and set the rest on fire. And even then, with that bitch, even that might not be enough. But I’m still gonna try.”

Realyn’s placed her hat back on her head. The shadow it cast obscured the upper half of her face.

“Let me take care of her, son,” she pleaded in a small, exhausted voice. “I made that monster.”

“And she made me,” I shot back. “So should I start calling you ‘grandma’-? AAAAHHH! STOP IT!”

I clutched at my head as Cerberus released a booming howl. The howl flared throughout my body. I tried to stop the change and only semi-managed it. I felt fur spread across my arms and parts of my face, and my fingers split open into skeletal claws. The top half of my body was too heavy for my legs to support, sending me falling forward off the porch. I caught myself on my hands. My claws cut into the sidewalk as if it were butter.

“CERBERUS,” I howled with a mouth full of fangs. Calling up his name sent out metaphysical chains towards the monster’s spirit. I poured all of my rage and passion into them. Once upon a time, it’d take me months to regain control of our body. Now, with practice, I just need a few uninterrupted seconds to chain the dog back up and put him in time out.

“I SAID ST-!!!”

My command was cut off by a bullet between the eyes, and all Hell broke loose in Chicago.