Devil Sent the Rain (11 page)

At the top of the stairs, Adrian forced himself to look at Mouser’s headless body. She had been a good comrade in arms, he thought, and then realized he was confusing the club’s gopher and Jim’s three-hundred-years-dead girlfriend.
Elaine
had been a good comrade in arms, he thought, sloshing through the wind and the flood of the wrecked restaurant towards the street.
Mouser
had been a kid with cool toys, in over her head.

A distraction. She’d been a good one.

Outside, the rain continued to fall, but it came down now as a slackening drizzle. Eddie dug his shotgun out of the wreckage, and boxes of shells.

“What about the instruments?” Mike asked.

“Itching to practice a little more bass guitar kung fu, are you?” Adrian grinned at Mike, and the big guy laughed.

Eddie shook his head, looking up and down the street. The Silver Eel sat among other large buildings, former and current warehouses, factories and other big commercial properties. In the storm, no one had noticed the destruction going on inside the club, and apparently everyone inside had been killed in the initial attack on the band. There were lots of cars of various sorts parked in front of the Eel, including a beamer or two, but Eddie nodded at a beat-up Ford Windstar.

“Really?” Adrian laughed out loud. “We got our pick of rides, and you want the only one that would be a trade
down?
”

Eddie shrugged. “We all gotta fit,” he pointed out, and continued digging in the ruin of his old van for things to salvage. “We can’t commit ourselves to having to fill two tanks.”

Mike moved over to the minivan. “It ain’t even locked,” he told them. “Huevos, some people. This’ll be easy.”

“Good.” Eddie jammed stuff into his pockets, and Adrian joined him, trying to find his decks of cards, nicotine gum, and the other miscellaneous objects he kept in the back seat. “Assume we have less than a minute.”

Twitch swooped down out of the darkness and lessening rain, touching down in her human drummer form. “Jim’s coming,” she said.

Eddie pumped his Remington shotgun. “Alone?”

The fairy laughed. “He sent them packing, our boy did.”

Adrian felt a profound pang of disappointment. Somehow, Jim had banished three of the Princes of Hell. Not
somehow
, Adrian thought, he did it
using my spell
. Still, the fact that the final moment of the face-off had taken place outside of Adrian’s presence made him feel cheated.

Even though he probably wouldn’t have understood a word of what passed between Jim and the Infernals.

The Windstar groaned into life. The passenger side window slid down smoothly at the touch of a button by Mike. “At least we won’t have to crank the windows manually anymore,” he called.

“Shall we get the instruments?” Adrian asked.

“No.”

The answer came from Jim. He stood in the wrecked doorway of the Silver Eel, a big, broad-shouldered silhouette against the light, naked sword in his hand.

“We gonna rob filling stations for cash, then?” Eddie asked. “Chicago’s a ways away, still.”

“We’re not going to Chicago,” Jim said.

“What the hell?” Eddie demanded. “We come all this way, and you go and give the hoof to the first pig-headed giant who asks
pretty please
?”

Jim raised his shirt, showing the bands of duct tape that still held the fragment of his father’s hoof there. “Hell knows we’re coming,” he said, stepping out into the rain. “We’d better take a short cut.”

Adrian couldn’t hold his curiosity and uncertainty in any longer. “Jim, what happened back there?” he almost exploded. “What was that?”

Jim arched his eyebrows at the wizard. “What was what?”

Adrian didn’t know where to start. “You’re a sorcerer.”

“No.” Jim shook his head. “But I’ve spent a lot of time around them. Enough that I knew when to jump into the spell.”

It was Adrian’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Enough to be able to read, write, and speak Adamic?”

“What Adamic?” Jim laughed lightly. “That was some Old Occitanian. France has turned out more than a few decent witches and wizards in her day.”

Adrian didn’t believe him for a heartbeat. Should he play along? “Which you learned … by hanging around wizards,” he asserted.

Jim nodded, and clapped his hands once. “Our shortcut’s going to mean no instruments,” he said, “but if you left anything else you want in the building, now’s the time to get it.”

“And Elaine?” Adrian tried to catch Jim’s eye.

Jim stared back levelly, and nodded once, slow and deep. “We’ll get Elaine,” he said.

“How about the van?” Mike asked.

By way of answer, Jim stepped forward and smashed the side view mirror off the minivan with the pommel of his sword. He picked the mirror up and showed it to the bass player. “This is all we’ll need from the van,” he said.

“Oberon’s teats,” Twitch cursed.

“I thought Oberon was the male.” Mike frowned as he got out of the van.

“Sometimes, Mike,” the fairy said with an affectionate smile, “you have a very limited imagination.”

“My pistol,” Adrian said. And nicotine patches, and gum. He felt good, in ways he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he had no confidence that he wouldn’t fall unconscious the next time he came under pressure. He still needed to undo his curse, still wanted power, was still looking to deal with the devil.

“You’re definitely going to need a gun,” Jim said. He grinned, but Adrian knew he was keeping secrets, and that made the grin seem less friendly.

“Some things never change,” Eddie grumbled. “Come on, I’ll help you find your shit.”

“It isn’t shit,” Adrian said, but he followed Eddie into the devastated club.

With the Fallen gone, the Silver Eel was transformed from a menacing trap, a mouth of steel, concrete and storm, into a simple wreck. Adrian picked his way among shattered timbers and severed mantis-demon limbs, hearing a fire truck siren start up somewhere in the city. “Maybe we could get something to eat in the kitchen before we leave,” he suggested to the guitar player. “Who knows when we might get our next safe meal?”

“Sure,” Eddie said. “That’s a good idea. They might not have eggs blessed by the Dalai Lama here, though.”

Adrian’s stomach rumbled.

“Steak,” he said. “I was thinking maybe a nice ribeye.”

***

About the Author

D.J. Butler (Dave) is a novelist living in the Rocky Mountain northwest. His training is in law, and he worked as a securities lawyer at a major international firm and inhouse at two multinational semiconductor manufacturers before taking up writing fiction. He is a lover of language and languages, a guitarist and self-recorder, and a serious reader. He is married to a powerful and clever woman and together they have three devious children.

Dave writes fantasy, science fiction, space opera, steampunk, cyberpunk, superhero, alternate history, dystopian fiction, horror and related genres for all audiences. His novels
Crecheling
and
City of the Saints
are available from WordFire Press, and his middle reader steampunk adventure series, The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie, launches soon with the novel
The Kidnap Plot
(Knopf, 2016).

Read about all of Dave’s fiction projects at
http://davidjohnbutler.com
.

***