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  An Agreement with Hell

  Dru Pagliassotti

  Apex Publications, LLC

  PO Box 24323

  Lexington, KY 40524

  An Agreement with Hell

  By Dru Pagliassotti

  Horror, Urban Fantasy

  This novel is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2011 by Dru Pagliassotti

  Cover art © 2010 by Katja Faith

  All rights reserved

  www.apexbookcompany.com

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Bios

  To my colleagues and students —

  “Oh, summon your sons and daughters, The 'circling hills enfold...”

  I

  Jack tightened his hands on the .45, feeling the silver crosses on its grip dig into his palms. The protective spells sewn into the lining of his jacket were playing havoc with his nerves, jangling them with discordant warnings of the presence of the mal'akhim.

  The devils circled around the broken angel like ants around a dead bird, their claws and tongues tentatively touching, probing, tasting. The angel quivered. One tattered wing twitched.

  Jack swore. Still alive. He slid the semiautomatic back into his jacket pocket. He wouldn’t get any thanks for blowing a hole through a member of the Heavenly Host. Instead, he slipped out his cell phone and hit speed dial.

  “It’s alive,” he said.

  “Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?”

  “The angel. It’s alive, but there’s a pack of devils around it.”

  “Save it. I’m on my way.”

  “That’s not my job,” Jack protested, but Andy had already hung up. Jack folded the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket, then swiftly touched the St. Jude medallion he wore around his neck.

  He edged away from the concrete pillar. One of his boots splashed in a puddle of water that was all that remained of the dried-up river.

  The devils hissed, crouching and raising their sharp-muzzled faces toward him. Mirroreyes caught and reflected him, and Jack winced. Right. What would Andy do?

  He’d pray.

  “Pater noster, qui es in caelis....”

  One of the devils opened its mouth, its wet tongue lolling in a lewd grin.

  “...Sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regunum tuum....”

  He forced himself to take another step forward. His heels were loud on the concrete riverbed, and the devils hissed.

  “James,” the grinning devil whispered, its mirroreyes fixing on him and reflecting a fractured visage. “James, what are you doing?”

  A bead of sweat ran down Jack’s face. He wiped it off and threw his long red braid over his shoulder.

  “Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.”

  “Pray all you want, James. It won’t redeem you.” The devil slid from the angel’s side, its flesh slipping from shape to shape as it stalked around Jack’s heels. Its narrow head brushed his coat hem. “I think you’ll be mine when you die.”

  Jack stumbled, recognizing Drink and forgetting the next line. Diabolic laughter sussurated through the shadows beneath the overpass. He heard a sound like a bottle breaking against concrete.

  “Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,” he said hastily, skipping to the end as the sharp scent of whiskey cut through the devils’ stink. More laughter. The devils weren’t impressed. They pressed closer, their shapes blurring as they smelled his sins and fashioned themselves into temptations.

  “Have you prayed for Rose lately?” one asked, looking up at him with silver eyes. Jack recoiled. Despair. He knew that devil, too.

  He knew them all. Drink and Despair, Pride and Fear, Violence and Rage, Doubt and—

  Bright light swept away the shadows as Andrew’s Dodge roared down the dry riverbed, clanking and rattling. The devils lifted their heads, sniffing for the newcomer’s motives and weaknesses.

  Brakes squealed and Andy yanked on the wheel, turning the Dodge sideways as it stopped. The heavy door clanked open as he stepped out.

  “Get out of here, you pests.” He lifted his golden pyx. “Go on, before I send you back to hell the hard way.”

  The devils vanished. Jack sagged.

  “Christ! Why don’t they ever gang up on you?” he asked, wiping his forehead on the back of his leather sleeve.

  “For one thing, I mind my language,” the laicized priest retorted. Jack grunted and crouched next to the angel, leaving his partner to mutter prayers before returning the pyx to his glove compartment.

  The angel wasn’t in good shape. Its wings, one arm, and both legs were broken. Shards of translucent bone glittered in the headlights. Mist poured off its flesh as if it were evaporating.

  Its mirroreyes reflected the same incomplete image that had been in the eyes of the devils. Jack looked away, then dragged his gaze back. The angel’s skin was too white, too smooth; radiant with an inner fire and without the pores and hairs that would mark a human. No blood showed where its flesh and bone were broken, and instead of breathing, it seemed to only, perpetually, inhale.

  The angel’s resemblance to humankind was a mask hiding a truth Jack knew was unbearable to behold.

  “What do you need?” he asked. “What can we do for you?”

  “James Ignatius Langthorn.” The angel’s voice was strong and sweet, despite its injuries, and light poured from its lips. Jack held his hand in front of his eyes to block the glare from its words. “Andrew Thomas Markham.”

  Andy knelt next to him, fumbling dark glasses from his coat pocket.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked, sliding the glasses on. “A prayer? Confession?”

  The angel’s one good wing fluttered. Feathers rasped against concrete with the noise of stone grinding against stone.

  “Eat and know,” the angel said, evaporating into white ash.

  The occult alarms rattling Jack’s nerves faded. He rocked back on his heels and looked at Andy. The former priest pulled off his sunglasses and sat still, letting them dangle from one hand.

  “Why do they always do that?” Jack asked. “I hate it when they’re obscure.”

  “Angels aren’t talkative.”

  “Raphael was.”

  “Raphael was an archangel. An archangel wouldn’t get taken down by a pack of devils.” Andy ran his thumb through the ash and crossed himself, leaving a smudge on his forehead, lips, and Hawaiian shirt. Then he dipped his thumb again and repeated the gesture for Jack.

  Jack licked his lips. A fire of wine and honey burned the tip of his tongue. For one fleeting moment a single, piercing note drilled through his ears, and he saw a furrowed field stre
aming with blood, a bone staircase that spiraled down into darkness, worms seething through raw meat, and a hallway full of doors slamming shut.

  And in the next breath, nothing.

  He looked down, but a cold breeze was blowing away the rest of the angel’s powdery remains.

  After a moment, the two men stood. A Styrofoam soda cup rattled down the concrete riverbed, and the wind shook a chain-link fence. Jack turned up his jacket collar. This was the first time he’d ever visited Southern California in the winter. He’d thought the weather would be warm, but even though the days stayed bright and sunny, the wind held a bite.

  Andy checked his watch.

  “We’d better get on the road,” he said. “It’s almost four. If we hurry, we’ll be off the 405 before rush hour.”

  They didn’t discuss the angel until they’d picked up a late lunch—or an early dinner—at McDonalds. The sun was low by the time the battered Dodge pulled up in the campus parking lot. California Hills University looked deserted, students and faculty disinclined to linger outside in December’s chill. A few lights streamed through the curtains of the apartments in the tiny visiting faculty complex, but nobody peered out to wave to them as they hurried up the walk.

  Jack set the greasy bags on Andy’s kitchen table while his friend woke up his laptop and began to peck at the keyboard.

  “Two Big Macs, fries, an apple pie, and a milkshake,” Jack grumbled, separating out his salad and throwing the dressing packets into the trash. He opened Andy’s refrigerator and pulled out the low-fat, low-sodium dressing he’d bought three days before. “God must have given you a plenary indulgence for cholesterol.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Andy grunted, not really listening. “You saw a field covered with blood?”

  “Yeah. Bone stairs. Worms or maggots. Doors slamming.”

  “Any idea where that field was located?

  “Could've been any field in the world.” Jack dropped into a metal folding chair and emptied the dressing over the salad, turning it into balsamic soup. “I know some songs about bloody battlefields, but it looked like plowed land to me.”

  “The blood could be literal or symbolic.”

  “Life would be a lot easier if angels saw the world the way we do.”

  “No doubt. And religion would be a lot easier if the Bible were literal.”

  “Does saying things like that ever get you in trouble in the religion department?

  “That? No.”

  “Something else?” Jack looked over at his friend, who was frowning at the laptop screen. A clear, bluish light lit his face, reminding Jack of the radiance that had streamed from the angel’s lips as it had spoken his name.

  His name. He knew, intellectually, that God was aware of his name, that God knew him more intimately than any mortal could. But to know didn’t mean to forgive. The dark, cancerous-looking holes in the reflection that he’d seen in the devils’ and angel’s eyes served as a grim reminder that he was a long way away from a state of grace.

  “Nothing important. I’m caught up in an administrative pissing match,” Andy said. “I told you my invitation came directly from the university president, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. They’re rebuilding the religion department, and he wanted a Catholic viewpoint.” Jack shrugged. “Strange choice for a Lutheran university.”

  “It’s not rabidly Lutheran, and there’s a large Catholic population in the area.” Andy made a face as the computer showed him something he didn’t want to see. He stood, running a hand through his white hair, and joined Jack at the kitchen table. “You know, I don’t think there’s any significant difference between a pint of low-fat dressing and a few ounces of regular dressing. Why are you on a diet, anyway? You look fine.”

  “Don’t you watch TV? Half the country is fat.”

  “You’re not. Now that you’re on the wagon, you look a lot better.” Andy unwrapped his burger, using the paper as a plate, and dumped his fries next to it. Jack eyed the crispy golden morsels with open longing. “Help yourself. A couple fries won’t kill you. This isn’t some kind of midlife crisis, is it? Or could it be, pray God, you’ve finally got a girlfriend?”

  Jack made a disgusted noise and grimly scooped up his floating strips of iceberg lettuce and toothpick-shaped carrot slices. For a celibate man, Andy seemed intent on Jack finding someone to replace Rose.

  Nobody would replace Rose.

  “Just stayin’ healthy,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” Andy’s gaze was probing. “You’ve been cutting back on the cigarettes, too. That’s good. That’s really good.”

  “It’s your apartment.” Jack avoided his friend’s eyes. “So, you gonna tell me what we were doing today?”

  Andy hesitated a moment, then let the change of subject stand.

  “You know as much as I do.” He looked solemn as he wiped his mouth on a thin paper napkin and leaned back in his chair. “Someone emailed me those GPS coordinates anonymously. Someone who knew the pack would be on a hunt.”

  “Anonymously.” Jack mentally dredged through what little he’d gleaned about computers from TV shows and mystery novels. “A hacker?”

  “It doesn’t have to be that complicated. The message could have been sent through any remailer that strips off the return address.”

  “Is that hard to do?”

  Andy smiled. “You know, Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I’m twenty years older than you are, and I know more about the Internet than you do.”

  “I don’t have time for the Internet.” Jack reached into his shirt pocket and laid a pack of Marlboros on the kitchen table. He glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes. He’d let himself have a cigarette in twenty minutes.

  The sound of a broken bottle echoed in Jack’s memory. He restlessly flipped the cigarette pack over.

  Andy had removed all the bottles from the house the day Jack had arrived. There was nothing in the apartment to tempt him except memories and old habits and the lingering smell of whiskey conjured up for him that afternoon.

  Jack looked at the clock again. Not even a minute had passed. He stood, grabbing the trash off the table.

  “So, who wants you involved in mal'akhim business?”

  “Could be anybody.” Andy kept eating. Jack jammed the bags into the can under the sink, catching a glimpse of himself in the black mirror of the kitchen window. No holes in that reflection, just a man in his mid-forties affecting aging-biker chic. He refocused and looked outside at the lights across the narrow courtyard. His heart was pounding. He took a deep breath, trying to force it back into a slow, steady beat.

  “So what’s going on in the department?” he asked after a moment, turning his back on the darkness outside.

  “The chair doesn’t want me.”

  “Doesn’t he take orders from the president?”

  “She, and yes, technically she does, after she takes orders from the dean and provost, anyway. But they disagree over which direction the religion department should be taking. The administration and regents want the department to focus on the Old Testament, and the chair wants more social justice-type professors.”

  “But you’re an Old Testament candidate.”

  “Me and Todd, the other visiting professor. I think we were both hired over the chair’s head. And I don’t think either of us is going to get our contract renewed next year.”

  Jack walked back to the kitchen table and sat down. Andy had finished his burgers and was picking at fries and slurping on his chocolate milkshake. Jack wanted to light a cigarette just to kill the smell. His stomach growled.

  “Todd’s the guy across the courtyard?”

  “Yes. Apocalyptic scholarship in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.”

  “You two get along?”

  “We haven’t talked much. He’s a big man, but quiet, even at departmental meetings. He works well with the students, though.”

  Jack picked up a burger wrapper and looked at the nutritional information, reminding himself why he
was sticking to salads. “Don’t the students like you? I’d think they’d get all excited about angelology.”

  “I don’t get to teach angelology. Two of my classes are Introduction to Christian Studies, and I’ve got a small special-topics course on Christian-centered cults. I talk about angels a little there, but the students don’t like what I have to say.” Andy finished the fries. “They think angels are sweet, cuddly little things that watch over them and keep them safe. You should see them squirm when I make them take a closer look at what the b'nei elohim actually do in the Bible.”

  Jack nodded, crushing the wrapper into a tight little ball.

  “Anyway,” Andy continued, “it’s all too old-fashioned for the chair. She doesn’t think the Old Testament is relevant.”

  “Your position at Belleville College is still secure, right?”

  “Oh, as secure as it ever was. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble going back. I thought CHU might make a nice place to retire, but I’ll do all right in Belleville, if I have to.”

  “Retire?” Jack dropped the wrapper and studied his friend. “You?”

  “I’m sixty-five, Jack. I’m ready.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Andy smiled. “Buy a Harley and hit the road with you, maybe. Find America and fight the forces of Satan.”

  “Christ.” Jack shook his head. “You're not serious.”

  “No, not really. I’m at more of an RV stage of life. I might buy a big old Streamline, tour the national parks, and write a few more books. I hear there’s a senior ranger program that would reduce my camping fees.”

  “You been thinking about this.” The idea of Andy retiring troubled Jack.

  “A little. The recession slowed me down, but I’d like to be out in five years. That’s probably another reason the chair doesn’t want to hire me—she’d prefer younger blood. I mean, that’s what caused the problem in the first place. The campus was founded just over sixty years ago, and now all the faculty who were hired back when this was Cal Hills College are retiring and leaving the departments short-handed.”

  “I didn’t know this place was so young. Guess that explains all the construction,” said Jack. “So why hire an old man like you at all?”