From Hell

From Hell

A
Demon Squad
Novella

Copyright 2013
Tim Marquitz

www.tmarquitz.com

~

Edited by Tyson Mauermann

Cover design by
Carter Reid

(Check out his amazing art
at: www.carterillustration.com
/
and
www.thezombienation.com/)

~

Created in the United States of
America

Worldwide Rights

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes
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All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form,
including digital, electronic, or mechanical, to include
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author,
except for brief quotes used in reviews.

~

This book is a work of fiction. All
characters, names, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely
coincidental.

Also Available in the
Demon Squad Series

Armageddon Bound

Resurrection

At the Gates

Echoes of the Past

Beyond the Veil

One

Some days you’re the hammer, some days
you’re the nail.

Meh, who am I kidding? I’m always the
nail.

“
Feint to your left
and
throw your right;
not feint
then
throw it. At the same time, boy.”

That’s Uncle Lou shouting directions,
Lucifer to those less cozy with the Devil.

“
I
do
know how to fight.”

Baalth shifted with me, taking the
bait, or so I thought. I was wrong. He dropped low, my punch
sailing over his head to knock the shit out of empty air.
Overextended, I didn’t see the uppercut until right before it
connected, knuckles colliding with my chin. I felt it, though. Not
gonna lie. Felt it all the way to my nuts.

My head snapped backwards
and for a split-second I was sure I could see my ass before
everything went blurry. The floor jumped up and gave me a welcoming
hug.
Thump.
Next
thing I knew, I was staring up at the cavernous ceiling, the dark
stone wavering before my eyes. My jaw throbbed.

“
Not very well, it seems.”
My uncle’s words were sand in my ears, crunchy and abrasive. It
sounded as if he were miles away. Just like my consciousness had
been a few seconds back.

Baalth appeared above me. “How many
times do I need to tell you to not talk when you’re fighting? Keep
your jaw clenched.” He stroked the point of his dark goatee, his
smile just as sharp.

I shrugged. “A couple more, I’m
guessing.”

He shook his head and sighed as he
helped me up, his eyes on my uncle. “It’s like training a rock; a
slow, stupid rock. He’s never going to fill Longinus’
shoes.”

“
He doesn’t need to be
anything like
that
bastard. He just needs to keep his head on his damn
shoulders,” Lucifer answered, the last spilling out in an
exasperated growl.

He put his hands on his hips and drew
a deep breath. In his usual form, old, gray and dumpy, he was
hardly an imposing presence…as long as I didn’t meet his eyes.
Feral like a shark’s, narrow, calculating, something unfathomable
churning in their depths, Uncle Lou wasn’t someone you wanted to
disappoint no matter what appearance he took on. Sadly, I’d been
doing it for hundreds of years. You’d think I’d learn.

Lucifer stared at me for a few
moments. I could feel the heat of it, but when he spoke his voice
was calm, collected. “Pack your bags, Triggaltheron. I have a job
for you.”

My heart leapt into my throat and I
tried to swallow it back. Work for my uncle always meant trouble
for me.

“
He’s not ready to go it
alone,” Baalth said. He was always my biggest critic, but I
couldn’t help agreeing with him this time. I’d been planning a nap,
and being sent off to die would really screw that up.

“
I suspect we’ll know if
that’s true soon enough.”

“
You’re going to get him
killed.”

My uncle grinned, brilliant white
teeth glaring. “Imagine all the money we’ll save on booze and get
well cards for the syphilitic victims of his love life.”

“
Hey now. It was just one
girl, and it wasn’t even my fau—”

“
Of course it wasn’t your
fault, Frank.” He waved me to silence. “You leave tonight.” My
uncle turned to look at Baalth, his stern expression brooking no
dissent. “Tonight.”

Baalth nodded, saying nothing more as
Lucifer left the room, heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Old Lou had made up his mind and not even God could get him to
change it. So let it be written, so let it be done, or some shit
like that.

I had no idea where I was going or
what I was supposed to do, but Lucifer didn’t send me out on my own
very often. I mean, I’d run tons of missions for him since I’d
arrived in Hell, but Baalth or one of the other lieutenants were
normally with me. This one couldn’t be that important or he’d have
dispatched someone else to be sure stuff got done right. I glanced
at Baalth for support.

“
I know what you’re
thinking, Frank, so get it out of your head now.”

“
What?” I raised my hands
in mock innocence.

“
This mission your uncle
is sending you on
is
important. He’s not sending you because he wants to but
because he can’t spare anyone else.”

“
So I’m
expendable?”

Baalth chuckled. “You more than most,
Frank.”

I sighed. Never ask a question you
don’t want to hear the answer to. “But—”

“
No buts.” He waggled a
finger. “Go grab your gear and meet me in your uncle’s quarters in
an hour. We’ve much to go over before you leave for Earth.” Baalth
gave a half-ass bow and spun on his heels, leaving me to my
thoughts.

I farted my displeasure and stood my
ground in defiance…

…
Until the smell hit
me.

Ale and yak ribs are a fetid
combination.

With the stink chasing me out of the
room, I went to get my stuff ready. It didn’t matter how close
Lucifer and I were, when the Devil says jump, you jump and worry
about what you land in later.

Two

London in November is
ghastly.

The frigid rain drummed a steady beat
atop my head, the brim of my hat just wide enough to keep it out of
my eyes. Water ran down the back and sleeves of my long jacket,
pooling at my feet and threatening to swallow my boots. Every
breath swirled from my lips, billows of white smoke in the night’s
cold. It was perfect weather…for a funeral. I only hoped it
wouldn’t be mine.

Baalth filled me in on my uncle’s
mission, and I admit, I had mixed feelings about it. The corpses of
several hookers had shown up across London’s East End, out in
Whitechapel, over the last few months. The women had been
butchered, cruelly cut apart and tortured without mercy. Their
throats had been slashed to the spine and their bodies mutilated
after the fact, bits and pieces of their inner workings plucked out
and taken as trophies, or something worse. Half a kidney of one had
even been sent to the leader of a local vigilance group to make a
point. That’s just plain brutal and disturbingly perverse even for
a demon like me.

On the other hand, though, there were
hookers. Sometimes you just have to look on the bright side. While
there wasn’t a bunch of time to play, any job with boobs was a good
one.

The kidney
hors d'oeuvre
had been
accompanied by a letter. While I’d been told it looked like it’d
been written by a dread fiend on an opium binge, the letter had put
the spotlight squarely on my uncle’s shoulders with the title ‘From
Hell.’ Lucifer was not pleased. While he never shied away from
taking care of business on Earth as he did in Hell, he didn’t go
out of his way to wave a red flag in God’s face, either. It was
never a good thing to draw the Almighty’s attention when you lived
south of the border. That’s the kind of disrespectful shit that got
Uncle Lou kicked out of the inner circle in the first
place.

So, by dint of there being no one else
to put on the job, I found myself in an alley, in the middle of
night, being pissed on by the churning clouds looming above. I’d
ask how much worse it could be, but I knew better. So, with only a
vague idea of which way to go, I started walking. Guess I should
have looked at the map a bit closer.

The dimensional gate had
opened in the dark recesses of a small alley, the rain and clouds
making sure my arrival wouldn’t be noticed. I glanced at the
nearest windows to find them boarded up tight to keep the night
out, which was fine with me. Lucifer wanted my little adventure to
be clandestine, or as Baalth put it, as sneaky as
I
was capable
of.

You gotta love a man with low
expectations; second only to a woman with low
expectations.

Just wanting to get the job done and
get home, I pulled my collar up around my cheeks and made my way
out of the alley. I felt the puddles splash with every step, but
the staccato of falling rain drowned the sound out. Thunder rumbled
above, a slow growl that dragged on and on, but there were no
flashes of lightning to be seen. That made it easier to sneak
about, but a tickle invaded my nose and wouldn’t go away, the soggy
wetness of London a sharp contrast to the dry heat of Hell. I did
my best to ignore it and walked on. A good sneeze would ruin my
attempt at stealth.

The dark stones of the surrounding
buildings looked as though they were bleeding. Trickles of water
spilled through the cracks in serpentine waves. Shadows hung heavy
between the buildings, and I heard a dog howling its misery in the
distance.

“
Sorry, pooch, but you’re
not the only one stuck out tonight.”

I sighed. Given that my contact had to
be smarter than the dog, or me, for that matter, he was likely
holed up at home, reveling in the warmth of a good fire and a nice,
warm bottle of something-or-other. Even murderers would take a
night like tonight off, but there I was, dripping from head to toe.
At least I didn’t have to worry about catching a cold.

My teeth clenched to keep
me from complaining too loudly, I strolled—well, more like
shambled—out of the alley and ran straight into a bundle of soft
flesh. The woman
squeaked
and fell on her ass into a puddle, water
gushed
from beneath her butt. Her doe eyes
were wide below the bonnet she wore to keep the rain off. They were
locked on me.

“
Oh! I am so sorr—” was
all I got out before she let loose with a banshee’s
wail.

She tumbled backward as if she’d seen
a ghost. Palms slapped the wet sidewalk when she fell. She kicked
up a froth when she flopped over and got to her feet. She’d barely
caught her balance before she was on the run.

“
Wally!” Her shriek rang
on echoing through the night.

Two other women, whom I hadn’t noticed
cowering beneath a nearby overhang, joined in with the first and
shot off down the sidewalk. Their screams climbed onto the back of
the first and set my ears to ringing.

“
Wait! I…” my sentence
trailed away as they ran without looking back. I’d have to yell for
them to hear me, but I didn’t see the point. They were doing more
than enough, already.
Clandestine
buggered all to hell not three minutes into the
mission, I went to cross the street and slip away when a yell of
another kind drew my attention.